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1—" 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BY EUGENE FIELD 



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THE HOUSE 

an (IBpisoije in tlje ILite^ of Kcuben HBafeer, 
aigtronomer, ano of ^is OTife Met 



EUGENE FIELD 






NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1896 






Copyright J 8qb 

By Julia Sutherland Field 



€it Cl)aptcrs in tl)i0 115oofe 



PAGE 



I We Buy a Place 

II Ourselves and Our Neighbors 
III We Make Our Bargain Known 
IV The First Payment ..... 
V We Negotiate a Mortgage . . 
VI I am Besought to buy Things . 
VII Our Plans for Improvements . 
VIII The Vandals Begin Their Wori- 
IX Neighbor Macleod's Thistle . 
X Colonel Doller's Great Idea . 
XI I Make a Stand for My Rights 
XII I AM Deceived in Mr. Wax . . 
XIII Editor Woodsit a True Friend 
XIV The Victim of an Ordinance . 
XV The Question of Insurance . . 
XVI Neighbor Robbins' Platypus 
XVII Our Devices for Economizing . 
XVIII I State My Views on Taxation 
XIX Other People's Dogs .... 
XX I Acquire Poison and Experience 
XXI With Plumbers and Painters . 
XXII The Butler's Pantry .... 

XXIII Alice's Night Watchman . . . 

XXIV Driveways and Wall-Papers 
XXV At Last We Enter Our House 



H 
23 
34 
45 
57 
68 

77 
89 

99 
no 
121 

132 
143 
154 
165 

175 
185 

195 

205 

215 

226 

237 
248 
258 



WE BUY A PLACE 

IT was either Plato the Athenian, or Con- 
fucius the Chinese, or Andromachus the 
Ci-gtan — or some other philosopher whose 
name I disremember — that remarked once 
upon a time, and the time was many centu- 
ries ago, that no woman was happy until 
she got herself a home. It really makes no 
difference who first uttered this truth, the 
truth itself is and always has been recognized 
as one possessing nearly all the virtues of an 
axiom. 

I recall that one of the first wishes I heard 
Alice express during our honeymoon was 
that we should sometime be rich enough to 
be able to build a dear little house for our- 
selves. We were poor, of course ; otherwise 
our air castle would not have been "a dear 
little house"; it would have been a palatial 



THE HOUSE 

residence with a dance-hall at the top and a 
wine-cellar at the bottom thereof. I have 
always observed that when the money comes 
in the poetry flies out. Bread and cheese 
and kisses are all well enough for poverty- 
stricken romance, but as soon as a poor man 
receives a windfall his thoughts turn inevita- 
bly to a contemplation of the probability of 
terrapin and canvasbacks. 

I encouraged Alice in her fond day-dream- 
ing, and we decided between us that the 
dear little house should be a cottage, about 
which the roses and the honeysuckles should 
clamber in summer, and which in winter 
should be banked up with straw and leaves, 
for Alice and I were both of New England 
origin. 1 must confess that we had some 
reason for indulging these pleasing specula- 
tions, for at that time my Aunt Susan was 
living, and she was reputed as rich as mud 
(whatever that may mean), and this simile 
was by her neighbors coupled with another, 
which represented Aunt Susan as being as 
close as a clapboard on a house. Whatever 
her reputation was, I happened to be Aunt 
Susan's nearest of kin, and although I never 



WE BUY A PLACE 

SO far lost my presence of mind as to inti- 
mate even indirectly that I had any expecta- 
tions, I wrote regularly to Aunt Susan once 
a month, and every fall I sent her a box of 
game, which I told her I had shot in the woods 
near oilr boarding-house, but which actually 
I had bought of a commission merchant in 
South Water Street. 

With the legacy which we were to receive 
from Aunt Susan, Alice and I had it all fixed 
up that we should build a cottage like one 
which Alice had seen one time at Sweet 
Springs while convalescing at that fashiona- 
ble Missouri watering-place from an attack 
of the jaundice. This cottage was, as 1 
was informed, an ingenious combination of 
Gothic decadence and Norman renaissance 
architecture. Being somewhat of an anti- 
quarian by nature, I was gratified by the 
promise of archaism which Alice's picture 
of our future home presented. We picked 
out a corner lot in, — well, no matter where; 
that delectable dream, with its Gothic and 
Norman features, came to an untimely end 
all too soon. At its very height Aunt Susan 
up and died, and a fortnight later we learned 



THE HOUSE 

that, after bequeathing the bulk of her prop- 
erty to foreign missions, she had left me, 
whom she had condescended to refer to as 
her ''beloved nephew," nine hundred dol- 
lars in cash and her favorite flower-piece in 
wax, a hideous thing which for thirty years 
had occupied the corner of honor in the front 
spare chamber. 

I do not know what Alice did with the 
wax-flowers. As for the nine hundred dol- 
lars, I appropriated it to laudable purposes. 
Some of it went for a new silk dress for Alice ; 
the rest I spent for books, and I recall my 
thrill of delight when 1 saw ensconced upon 
my shelves a splendid copy of Audubon's 
'' Birds " with its life-size pictures of turkeys, 
buzzards, and other fowl done in impossible 
colors. 

After that experience "our house" sim- 
mered and shrivelled down from the Nor- 
man-Gothic to plain, everyday, fm-de-siecle 
architecture. We concluded that we could 
get along with five rooms (although six 
would be better), and we transferred our af- 
fections from that corner lot in the avenue 
which had engaged our attention during the 



WE BUY A PLACE 

decadent-renaissance phase ofoLir enthusiasm 
to a modest point in Slocum's Addition, a 
locality originally known as Slocum's Slough, 
but now advertised and heralded by the press 
and rehabilitated in public opinion as Para- 
dise Park. This pleasing mania lasted about 
two years. Then it was forever abated by 
the awful discovery that Paradise Park was 
the breeding spot of typhoid fever, and, fur- 
thermore, that old man Slocum's title to the 
property was defective in every essential 
particular. 

Alice and 1 did not find it in our power 
either to overlook or to combat these trifling 
objections; with unabated optimism we cast 
our eyes elsewhere, and within a month we 
found another delectable biding place— this 
time some distance from the city — in fact, in 
one of the new and booming suburbs. Elm- 
dale was then new to fame. I suppose they 
called it Elmdale because it had neither an 
elm nor a dale. It was fourteen miles from 
town, but its railroad transportation facilities 
were unique. The five-o'clock milk-train 
took passengers in to business every morn- 
ing, and the eight-o'clock accommodation 



THE HOUSE 

brought them home again every evening; 
moreover, the noon freight stopped at Elm- 
dale to take up passengers every other Wed- 
nesday, and it was the practice of every other 
train to whistle and to slack up in speed to 
thirty miles an hour while passing through 
this promising suburb. 

I did not care particularly for Elmdale, but 
Alice took a mighty fancy to it. Our twin 
boys (Galileo and Herschel, named after the 
astronomers of blessed memory ! ) were now 
three years old, and Alice insisted that they 
required the pure air and the wholesome free- 
dom of rural life. Galileo had, in fact, never 
quite been himself since he swallowed the 
pincushion. 

We did not go to Elmdale at once; we 
never went there. Elmdale was simply an- 
other one of those curious phases in which our 
dream of a home abounded. With the Elm- 
dale phase ''our house" underwent another 
change. But this was natural enough. You 
see that in none of our other plans had we 
contemplated the possibility of a growing 
family. Now we had two uproarious boys, 
and their coming had naturally put us into 
6 



WE BUY A PLACE 

pleasing doubt as to what similar emergen- 
cies might transpire in the future. So our 
five-room cottage had acquired (in our minds) 
two more rooms — seven altogether — and 
numerous little changes in the plans and 
decorations of ''our house" had gradually 
been evolved. 

As I now remember, it was about this 
time that Alice made up her mind that the 
reception-room should be treated in blue. 
Her birth had occurred in December, and 
therefore turquoise was her birth-stone and 
the blue thereof was her fivorite color. I 
am not much of a believer in such things — 
in fact, I discredit all superstitions except 
such as involve black cats and the rabbit's 
foot, and these exceptions are wholly reason- 
able, for my family lived for many years in 
Salem, Mass. But I have always conceded 
that Alice has as good a right to her super- 
stitions as I to mine. I bought her the pret- 
tiest turquoise ring I could afford, and I 
approved her determination to treat the re- 
ception-room in blue. I rather enjoyed the 
prospect of the luxury of a reception-room ; 
it had ground the iron into my soul that, 



THE HOUSE 

ever since we married and settled down, 
Alice and I had been compelled in winter 
months to entertain our callers in the same 
room where we ate our meals. In summer 
this humiliation did not afflict us, for then 
we always sat of an evening on the front 
porch. 

The blue room met with a curious fate. 
One Christmas our beneficent friend, Colonel 
Mullaly, presented Alice and me with a beau- 
tiful and valuable lamp. Alice went to Bur- 
ley's the next week and priced one (not half 
as handsome) and was told that it cost sixty 
dollars. It was a tall, shapely lamp, with an 
alabaster and Italian marble pedestal cun- 
ningly polished; a magnificent yellow silk 
shade served as the crowning glory to this 
superb creation. 

For a week, perhaps, Alice was abstracted; 
then she told me that she had been thinking it 
all over and had about made up her mind that 
when we got our new house she would 
have the reception-room treated in a delicate 
canary shade. 

''But why abandon the blue, my dem'?" 
I asked. " I think it would be so pretty to 
8 



WE BUY A PLACE 

have the decoration of the room match your 
turquoise ring." 

''That 's just like a man!" said Alice. 
"Reuben, dear, could you possibly imagine 
anything else so perfectly horrid as a yellow 
lampshade in a blue room ?" 

*'You are right, sweetheart," said I. 
"That is something I had never thought of 
before. You are right; canary color it shall 
be, and when we have moved in I '11 buy 
you a dear little canary bird in a lovely gold 
cage, and we '11 hang it in the front win- 
dow right over the lamp, so that everybody 
can see our treasures from the street and 
envy our happiness! " 

" You dear, sweet boy ! " cried Alice, and 
she reached up and pulled my head down 
and kissed her dear, sweet boy on his bald 
spot. Alice is an angel! 

I fear I am wearying you with the prolix- 
ity of my narrative. So let me pass rapidly 
over the ten years that succeeded to the 
yellow-lamp epoch. Ten hard but sweet 
years! Years full of struggle and hopes, 
touched with bereavement and sorrow, but 
precious years, for troubles, like those we 
9 



THE HOUSE 

have had, sanctify human lives. Children 
came to us, and of these priceless treasures 
we lost two. If 1 thought Alice would ever 
see these lines I should not say to you now 
that from the two great sorrows of those 
years my heart has never been and never 
shall be weaned. I would not have Alice 
know this, for it would open afresh the 
wounds her dear, tender mother-heart has 
suffered. 

Galileo and Herschel are strapping fel- 
lows. They have survived their juvenile ambi- 
tions to be milkmen, policemen, lamp-light- 
ers, butchers, grocerymen, etc., respectively. 
Both are now in the manual-training school. 
Fanny, Josephine and Erasmus — I have not 
mentioned them before, — these are the chil- 
dren that are left to us of those that have 
come in the later years. And, my! how 
they are growing! What changes have 
taken place in them and all about us! My 
affairs have prospered; if it had n't been for 
the depression that set in two years ago I 
should have had one thousand dollars in 
bank by this time. My salary has increased 
steadily year by year; it has now reached a 

10 



WE BUY A PLACE 

sum that enables me to hope for speedy re- 
lief from those financial worries which en- 
compass the head of a numerous household. 
By the practice of rigid economy in family 
expenses I have been able to accumulate a 
large number of black-letter books and a fine 
collection of curios, including some fifty 
pieces of mediaeval armor. We have lived 
in rented houses all these years, but at no 
time has Alice abandoned the hope and the 
ambition of having a home of her own. 
''Our house" has been the burthen of her 
song from one year's end to the other. I 
understand that this becomes a monomania 
with a woman who lives in a rented house. 
And, gracious! what changes has "our 
house" undergone since first dear Alice pic- 
tured it as a possibility to me ! It has passed 
through every character, form, and style of 
architecture conceivable. From five rooms 
it has grown to fourteen. The reception 
parlor, chameleon-like, has changed color 
eight times. There have duly loomed up 
bewildering visions of a library, a drawing- 
room, a butler's pantry, a nursery, a laundry 
— oh, it quite takes my breath away to re- 



THE HOUSE 

call and recount the possibilities which 
Alice's hopes and fancies conjured up. 

But, just two months ago to-day Alice 
burst in upon me. I was in my study over 
the kitchen figuring upon the probable date 
of the conjunction of Venus and Saturn in 
the year 1963. 

"Reuben, dear," cried Alice, ''I 've done 
it! I Ve bought a place! " 

''Alice Fothergill Baker," says I, ''what 
do you mean!" 

She was all out of breath — so transported 
with delight was she that she could hardly 
speak. Yet presently she found breath to 
say: "You know the old Schmittheimer 
place — the house that sets back from the 
street and has lovely trees in the yard } You 
remember how often we 've gone by there 
and wished we had a home like it? Well, 
I 've bought it ! Do you understand, Reuben 
dear.? I 've bought it, and we 've got a 
home at last! " 

" Have you paid for it, darling .? " I asked. 

"N-n-no, not yet," she answered, "but 
I 'm going to, and you 're going to help me, 
are n't you, Reuben.?" 



WE BUY A PLACE 

''Alice," says I, going to her and putting 
my arms about her, *'I don't know what 
you 've done, but of course I 'II help you — 
yes, dearest, I 'II back you to the last breath 
of my life! " 

Then she made me put on my boots and 
overcoat and hat and go with her to see her 
new purchase — ''our house!" 



'3 



OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS 

EVERYBODY'S house is better made by 
his neighbors. This philosophical ut- 
terance occurs in one of those black-letter 
volumes which I purchased with the money 
left me by my Aunt Susan (of blessed 
memory!). Even if Alice and I had not 
fully made up our minds, after nineteen 
years of planning and figuring, what kind 
of a house we wanted, we could have re- 
ferred the important matter to our neighbors 
in the confident assurance that these amia- 
ble folk were much more intimately ac- 
quainted with our needs and our desires 
than we ourselves were. The utter disin- 
terestedness of a neighbor qualifies him to 
judge dispassionately of your requirements. 
When he tells you that you ought to do so 
and so or ought to have such and such a 
H 



OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS 

thing, his counsel should be heeded, be- 
cause the probabilities are that he has made 
a careful study of you and he has unselfishly 
arrived at conclusions which intelligently 
contemplate your welfare. In planning for 
oneself one is too likely to be directed by 
narrow prejudices and selfish considera- 
tions. 

Alice and 1 have always thought much of 
our neighbors. I suspect that my neigh- 
bors are my most salient weaknesses. 1 
confess that I enjoy nothing else more than 
an informal call upon the Baylors, the Tilt- 
mans, the Rushes, the Denslows and the 
other good people who constitute the best 
element in society in that part of the city 
where Alice and I and our interesting family 
have been living in rented quarters for the 
last six years. This informality of which I 
am so fond has often grieved and offended 
Alice. It is that gentle lady's opinion that 
a man at my time of life should have too 
much dignity to make a practice of "bolt- 
ing into people's houses " (I quote her words 
exactly) when I know as well as I know 
anything that they are at dinner, and that 
15 



THE HOUSE 

a dessert in the shape of a rhubarb pie or a 
strawberry shortcake is about to be served. 

There was a time when Alice overlooked 
this idiosyncrasy upon my part; that was 
before I achieved what Alice terms a na- 
tional reputation by my discovery of a satel- 
lite to the star Gamma in the tail of the 
constellation Leo. Alice does not stop to 
consider that our neighbors have never read 
the royal octavo volume I wrote upon the 
subject of that discovery ; Alice herself has 
never read that book. Alice simply knows 
that I wrote that book and paid a printer 
one thousand one hundred dollars to print it; 
this is sufficient to give me a high and broad 
status in her opinion, bless her loyal little 
heart ! 

But what do our neighbors know or care 
about that book? What, for that matter, 
do they know or care about the constella- 
tion Leo, to say nothing of its tail and the 
satellites to the stellar component parts 
thereof.^ I thank God that my hospitable 
neighbor, Mrs. Baylor, has never suffered a 
passion for astronomical research to lead her 
into a neglect of the noble art of compound- 
i6 



OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS 

ing rhubarb pies, and I am equally grateful 
that no similar passion has stood in the way 
of good Mrs. Rush's enthusiastic and artistic 
construction of the most delicious shortcake 
ever put into the human mouth. 

The Denslows, the Baylors, the Rushes, 
the Tiltmans and the rest have taken a great 
interest in us, and they have shared the en- 
thusiam (I had almost said rapture) with 
which Alice and 1 discoursed of "the house" 
which we were going to have "sometime." 
They did not, however, agree with us, nor 
did they agree with one another, as to the 
kind of house this particular house of ours 
ought to be. Each one had a house for sale, 
and each one insisted that his or her house 
was particularly suited to our requirements. 
The merits of each of these houses were 
eloquently paraded by the owners thereof, 
and the demerits were as eloquently pointed 
out by others who had houses of their own 
to sell "on easy terms and at long time." 

It was not long, as you can well suppose, 
before Alice and I were intimately acquaint- 
ed with all the weak points in our neighbors' 
residences. We knew all about the Baylors' 

»7 



THE HOUSE 

leaky roof, the Denslows' cracked plastering, 
the Tiltmans' back stairway, the Rushes' ex- 
posed water pipes, the Bollingers' defective 
chimney, the Dobells' rickety foundation, 
and a thousand other scandalous details 
which had been dinged into us and which 
we treasured up to serve as a warning to us 
when we came to have a house — ''the 
house " which we had talked about so 
many years. 

1 can readily understand that there were 
those who regarded our talk and our plan- 
ning simply as so much effervescence. We 
had harped upon the same old string so 
long — or at least Alice had — that, not un- 
frequently, even we smilingly asked our- 
selves whether it were likely that our day- 
dreaming would ever be realized. 1 dimly 
recall that upon several occasions I went so 
far as to indulge in amiable sarcasms upon 
Alice's exuberant mania. I do not remem- 
ber just what these witticisms were, but I 
daresay they were bright enough, for I never 
yet have indulged in repartee without hav- 
ing bestowed much preliminary study and 
thought upon it. 

18 



OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS 

I have mentioned our youngest son, Eras- 
mus ; he was born to us while we were mem- 
bers of Plymouth Church, and we gave him 
that name in consideration of the wishes of 
our beloved pastor, who was deeply learned 
in and a profound admirer of the philosophi- 
cal works of Erasmus the original. Both 
Alice and I hoped that our son would incline 
to follow in the footsteps of the mighty ge- 
nius whose name he bore. But from his 
very infancy he developed traits widely dif- 
ferent from those of the stern philosopher 
whom we had set up before him as the para- 
gon of human excellence. 1 have always 
suspected that little Erasmus inherited his 
frivolous disposition from his uncle (his mo- 
ther's brother), Lemuel Fothergill, who at the 
early age of nineteen ran away from the form 
in Maine to travel with a thrashing machine, 
and who subsequently achieved somewhat 
of a local reputation as a singer of comic 
songs in the Barnabee Concert Troupe on 
the Connecticut river circuit. 

Erasmus' sense of humor is hampered by 
no sentiment of reverence. For the last five 
years he has caused his mother nnd me much 



THE HOUSE 

humiliation by his ribald treatment of the 
subject that is nearest and dearest to our 
hearts. In fact, we have come to be ashamed 
ofspeaking of "the house" in Erasmus' hear- 
ing, for that would give the child a chance 
to indulge in humor at the expense of a mat- 
ter which he seems to regard as visionary as 
the merest fairy tale. Now Galileo and Her- 
schel are very different boys ; they are mak- 
ing famous progress at the manual training- 
school. Galileo has already invented a churn 
of exceptional merit, and Herschel is so deft 
at carpentering that I have determined to let 
him build the observatory which I am going 
to have on the roof of the new house one 
of these days. Galileo and Herschel are un- 
usually proper, steady boys. And our daugh- 
ters — ah! that reminds me. 

Fanny is our oldest girl. She is going on 
fifteen now. She favors the Bakers in ap- 
pearance, but her character is more like her 
mother's side of the family. If 1 do say it 
myself, Fanny is a beautiful girl. If I could 
have my way Fanny would be less given to 
the social amenities of life, but the truth is 
that the dear creature naturally loves gayety 



OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS 

and is bound to have it at all times and under 
all conditions. Her merry disposition makes 
her a favorite with all, and particularly with 
her schoolmates. 

Now that I think of it, Willie Sears has 
been to see Fanny every evening for the last 
week. I wonder whether Alice has noticed 
it; I think I shall have to speak to her about 
it. Yet the probability is that Alice will re- 
sent the suggestion which my mention of the 
matter will convey. Alice has been saying 
all along that one particular reason why our 
new house should be a large one is that there 
would then be a room where Fanny could 
receive her company without being mortified 
almost to death by Erasmus' horrid intrusion 
and still more horrid remarks. At such times 
I forgive and adore Erasmus. It seems only 
yesterday that I bought her a bisque doll at 
the World's Fair, a bisque doll with pink 
eyes and blue hair, and now — oh, Fanny, 
are you no longer our little girl ? 

Still, we have Josephine, and I am sure she 
will honor us; for she was born six years 
ago under the conjunction of Jupiter and 
Venus, and while Mars was at perihelion. 



THE HOUSE 

Moreover, she is the seventh daughter of a 
seventh daughter, and there are those who 
believe that there is especial virtue in that. 
I named her after the French empress, not 
because I am a particular admirer of that re- 
markable but unfortunate woman's charac- 
ter, but for the reason that upon one occasion 
she secured a pension of eight hundred francs 
for the astronomer LeBanc, who had already 
added to the sum of human happiness by lo- 
cating an asteroid near the left limb of the 
sun, and who subsequently discovered a 
greenish yellow spot on the outer ring of 
the planet Saturn. I never hear my dear 
little girl's voice or see her sweet face that I 
do not think of the planet Saturn; and never 
in the solemn stillness of night do I contem- 
plate the scintillating glories of the ringed 
orb without being reminded of the fair, in- 
nocent babe asleep in her little white iron 
bedstead downstairs. 

This sentimental association of objects 
widely separated in space has served to con- 
vince me that there is nothing, either in the 
heavens above or in the earth beneath, that 
has not its use, both profitable and pleasant. 

22 



Ill 

WE MAKE OUR BARGAIN KNOWN 

THE Schmittheimer place has occasioned 
Alice and me many heartburnings of 
envy the last three years. I recall that the 
first time we passed it Alice exclaimed: 
''There, Reuben, is just the place for us!" 
I agreed entirely with this proposition. The 
house stood back a goodly distance from the 
street upon a prominence that gave it an ex- 
tended survey of the landscape, and afforded 
an exceptionally noble opportunity for an 
unobstructed view of the heavens upon 
cloudless nights. Alice particularly admired 
the lawn, for already she pictured to herself 
the pleasing sight of little Josephine and little 
Erasmus at play in the cool grass under the 
umbrageous trees. 

And now, having yearned and pined for 
this particular abiding-place a many days, it 



THE HOUSE 

was really ours! Alice told me about it — 
how she had comprehended the bargain (for 
it was indeed a bargain !) — as we proceeded 
together to inspect our new home. It seems 
that that very morning, worn out with 
waiting and inflamed by a determination to 
do Now or to perish in the attempt, Alice had 
sallied forth in quest of the precious game. 
She had gone directly to the owner, had 
subtly ingratiated herself in the confidence 
of Mrs. Schmittheimer, and, in less than fif- 
teen minutes' time, had made terms with 
that amiable woman. And such terms ! My 
head fairly swims when I think of it. 

Mrs. Schmittheimer is a widow. Since 
her husband's demise two years ago come 
next September, she has lived in compara- 
tive solitude in the old home. She was not 
wholly alone, for with characteristic Teutonic 
thrift she had rented the lower part of the 
house to a small family, consisting of a me- 
chanic, his wife, their baby, and a small dog. 
Mrs. Schmittheimer herself lived and moved 
and had her being in the second story, doing 
her own cooking and other housework, her 
only companion being her faithful omnipres- 
24 



WE MAKE OUR BARGAIN KNOWN 

ent cat, the sex of which (I state this for a 
reason which will hereinafter transpire) was 
feminine. Although the good Mrs. Schmitt- 
heimer was not unfrequently visited by fe- 
male compatriots who condoled with her 
and drank her coffee and ate her kuchen, 
after the fashion of sym.pathetic, suffering 
womanhood, she wearied of this loneliness; 
she was, in fact, as anxious to get away from 
the old place as Alice and I were to get into 
it. 

So Alice and Mrs. Schmittheimerhad little 
trouble in coming to an understanding mutu- 
ally agreeable. The late Mr. Schmittheimer 
had always demanded the round sum of ten 
thousand dollars for the property under dis- 
cussion, but the prevalence of hard times and 
the persuasive eloquence of my dear diplo- 
matic Alice induced the late Mr. Schmitt- 
heimer's relict to consent to a reduction of 
the price to nine thousand five hundred dol- 
lars, ''one thousand dollars in cash and the 
balance in five years at six per cent, interest, 
payable semi-annually." 

"You see," said Alice to me, *' that we 
practically get the place for five years by 



THE HOUSE 

simply paying rent. We pay one thousand 
dollars down and fifty dollars a month in- 
terest. In five years there are sixty months, 
and in that time we shall have paid for this 
place four thousand dollars, which is but four 
hundred dollars more than we should have 
to pay if we remained in the house we are 
now living in at sixty dollars a month rental ! 
You see, I have figured it all out, and figures 
can't lie! " 

You will agree with me when I tell you 
right here that my wife Alice is a superior 
woman. 

"Now we must be very careful," said 
Alice, " not to breathe a word about this to 
anybody until all the papers have been signed 
and the property has been transferred." 

1 suggested that in so serious a proceeding 
it might be wise to have the counsel of the 
more intimate of our neighbors; the Baylors, 
the Rushes and the Tiltmans had had expe- 
rience in such matters, and might be of im- 
portant service to us in this particular under- 
taking. 

" No, "said Alice, " we must guard against 
every possibility of failure. Our plan might 
26 



WE MAKE OUR BARGAIN KNOWN 

leak out and reach the ears of the real-estate 
dealers, and then we should be hopelessly 
lost. Our neighbors mean well, but they 
are human. No, the only people 1 shall con- 
sult are the Denslows." 

I saw at once the wisdom of this deter- 
mination. The Denslows are most estimable 
folk and I admire and love them. Mrs. Dens- 
low is of an exceptionally warm, generous, 
and liberal nature, while, upon the other 
hand, Mr. Denslow has the reputation of 
being the most cautious business man in our 
city ; the consequence is that in the adminis- 
tration of affairs in the Denslow household 
you meet with that conservative happy me- 
dium which is beautiful to contemplate. 
Alice was right; our precious secret would 
be secure with the Denslows. In fact the 
Denslows would be of distinct help to us in 
the vast enterprise in which we had em- 
barked. Mrs. Denslow would be prepared 
at all times to provide sympathy and enthu- 
siasm, and Mr. Denslow would be constituted 
at once absolute engineer and watchdog of 
the business details of the affair. 

But— I make the confession amid blushes 



27 



THE HOUSE 

— I cannot prevaricate, neither can I dis- 
semble. Alice knew the guilelessness and 
singleness of my nature, and she should not 
have imposed that dreadful oath of secrecy 
upon me. I would not for all the wealth of 
the Indies live over again the awful four 
hours which followed my solemn promise 
to Alice not to reveal the blissful tidings that 
we had bought the old Schmittheimer place! 
I felt as if 1 had committed a crime; I was as 
a haunted man must be. - I dared not look 
my neighbors in the face lest they should 
read the sweet truth in my honest eyes. 

Finally I broke completely down, for I 
could not stand it any longer. I actually be- 
lieve that if 1 had kept silent another hour the 
dreadful consciousness of guilt would have 
swelled within me to such a bulk as to have 
burst me into fragments, which would now 
be travelling around aimlessly in space, like 
the lost Pleiad, or like the dismembered and 
stray tail of a comet. So I called my next 
neighbor. Rush, out behind his barn, and, 
under oath of secrecy, revealed the good 
news to him, and then I did likewise by 
neighbor Tiltman, and so on, in seemly pro- 
28 



WE MAKE OUR BARGAIN KNOWN 

gression, by all the other neighbors, until at 
last my confidence had been securely reposed 
in every one. 

I cannot tell you what sweet relief I found 
in this proceeding. To my killing conscious- 
ness of guilt succeeded a peace which pass- 
eth all human understanding. There was a 
world of satisfaction, too, in being assured 
by each of those dear neighbors that we 
(Alice and 1) had got the greatest bargain 
ever heard of, that we were the luckiest 
couple on earth, that the old Schmittheimer 
place was just exactly what we wanted, that 
the property would enhance double in value 
in less than a year, etc., etc., etc. Oh, it is 
good to have such neighbors as ours are! 

The Denslows were quite as glad as the 
others were to hear of our bargain. Mrs. 
Denslow (bless her kind heart) began at once 
to picture the veritable paradise into which 
it were possible to transform the front lawn. 
In the exuberance of her fancy she portrayed 
winding gravel walks among rose bushes 
and beds of gay flowers ; rustic bowers over 
which honeysuckle and ivy clambered; pic- 
turesque miniature Swiss cottages in the trees 
29 



THE HOUSE 

for birds to nest in; an artificial lake well 
stocked with goldfishes, and upon whose 
tranquil bosom a swan or two would glide 
majestically through the mist of the fountain 
that perennially would shower down its 
tinkling grace. 

It was very pleasing to hear Mrs. Denslow 
and Alice talk about these things with that 
enthusiasm peculiar to their sex. Until ' ' our 
house " became a probability I did not really 
know with what rapidity it were possible 
for women-folk to discuss and to decide even 
the most insignificant details of the subject 
matter of their enthusiasm. As 1 recall, in 
less than fifteen minutes' time after Alice had 
confided our secret to Mrs. Denslow those 
two amiable and superior women had it defi- 
nitely settled what the color of the window 
shades was to be and just how many brass- 
headed tacks would be required to fasten 
down the new Japanese rug with which it 
was proposed to adorn the hardwood floor 
of the library in the first story of "the addi- 
tion " which had already been determined 
upon. But Mrs. Denslow was no more pro- 
lific of lovely suggestions than was Alice's 



WE MAKE OUR BARGAIN KNOWN 

widowed sister Adah, wlio lias made lier 
home with us for the last two years. Adah's 
one o'ermastering' ambition in life has been 
to build a house. In the autumn of 1881 she 
saw in a copy of ' ' The National Architect "the 
picture and plans of a villa owned by a plu- 
tocrat at Narragansett Pier. She preserved 
this paper as sacredly as if it were one of the 
femily archives, and upon the slightest pre- 
text she brought it forth and exhibited it and 
dilated in extenso upon the surpassing ad- 
vantages and beauties of the plutocratic villa. 
When Adah learned that Alice and I had 
actually bought a place at last she fairly 
wept for joy, and she excitedly produced 
her creased and worn copy of ''The National 
Architect" and besought us to remodel the 
oldSchmittheimer "rookery " — thatis what 
she dared to call it — into a villa! And when 
she was made to understand by means of 
numerous long and earnest representations 
that a villa could not even be dreamed of by 
poor folk, Adah was prepared to compromise 
the affliirupon a basis involving our promise 
to build a colonial house like Maria's house 
in St. Jo. 

3> 



THE HOUSE 

This Maria, whose name is forever upon 
Adah's tongue, had been Adah's schoohnate 
back in St. Joseph, Missouri. Their friend- 
ship extended through the blissful years of 
their early wedded life. And at the present 
time they are as dear to each other as of yore. 
Adah presupposes that everybody else knows 
who Maria is, and so everybody is regaled 
perennially with Adah's loyal tributes to 
Maria's transcendent virtues. Occasionally 
Alice (who is without doubt the sweetest- 
natured creature in all the world) rebels 
against the example of Maria which Adah 
continually holds forth. 

I have an instance just at hand. It could 
not have been more than half an hour ago 
that I heard Adah say: ''Alice, do you know 
I 've been thinking about it all the morn- 
ing, and I don't see how you 're going to 
get along without a closet in that little east 
room up-stairs." 

"But," said Alice, ''there seems to be no 
way of putting a closet into that room." 

"Well, I think I 've hit on a plan," said 
Adah, and she produced a Mme. Demorest 
pattern of a sleeve, upon which, with infinite 



WE MAKE OUR BARGAIN KNOWN 

pains, she had traced certain lines with the 
wreck of a pencil which little Josephine had 
tried to sharpen with the scissors. 

"Yes, I see," said Alice, amiably; ''but 
that would cut in upon the hall." 

"Well, Maria had to do the same thing 
when she made her house over," said Adah, 
"and you Ve no idea how nice it is." 

" I don't care ivhat Maria did," said Alice, 
bridling up. "This is ruy house, and 1 'm 
not going to spoil a good hall by building 
any skimpy little closets! That room will 
do for Erasmus, and he does n't need any 
closet. So that is settled, once and for- 
ever!" 

I heard all this, myself, from the next 
room. I did not interfere at all, for I make 
it a rule never to interpose in other people's 
disagreements. 1 will admit, however, that 
it rather wounded me to hear Alice call it 
''my house" instead oi our house. 



3} 



IV 
THE FIRST PAYMENT 

AS for Mr. Denslow, he agreed with other 
i\ friends and neighbors that in our new 
old house we had secured a genuine bargain. 
But, as I have already indii:ated, Mr. Dens- 
low was no day-dreamer; he had a way 
of viewing things that was severe in its 
practicality. 

Now, 1 am in no sense a business man; 
you may already have suspected this truth. 
I am very far from being a fool, as those who 
have read my numerous treatises (particu- 
larly my *' Essay to Prove the Probability of 
the Existence of an Atmosphere on the Other 
Side of the Moon") will testify; but,, having 
had little to do with the operations and 
methods of trade and commerce, 1 am not 
(I admit it freely) an expert in what in this 
34 



THE FIRST PAYMENT 

great, bustling city of Chicago are termed 
affliirs of tiie world. 

Mr. Denslow, upon the other hand, is 
keenly in touch with these affairs; brought 
hourly during the day into contact and com- 
petition with scheming — and not always 
scrupulous — men, he has acquired an ex- 
tensive knowledge of human nature of the 
rapacious type, and this knowledge has 
made him wary, alert, prudent, and reserved. 
It is perhaps this wide difference in our na- 
tures and our pursuits that has attracted Mr. 
Denslow and me to each other; at any rate 
our friendship has been profitable to both. 
Mr. Denslow's counsel upon several import- 
ant occasions has been of vast value to me, 
and I flatter myself that upon one occasion 
at least I served Mr. Denslow to excellent 
purpose. This was two years ago, when, 
as perhaps you remember, my sun-spot 
theory was widely discussed by the news- 
paper press. I then told Mr. Denslow that 
the recurrence of the sun spots would surely 
induce a drought upon this planet, thereby 
causing a shortage in the crops; whereupon 
Mr. Denslow ''cornered the wheat market" 



THE HOUSE 

(as the saying is) and realized a handsome 
sum of money. 

Alice has long recognized Mr. Denslow's 
merits as a man of business; she, too, has 
what, in lieu of a better term, our New 
England people call faculty. So it was 
natural that after having drunk deep (so to 
speak) at the fountain of Mrs. Denslow's 
enthusiasm, we should turn for serious ad- 
vice and practical counsel to Mr. Denslow. 

"This opportunity," said Mr. Denslow, 
"is one thai: comes only once in a lifetime. 
You must not let it escape you. We should 
go at once to Mrs. Schmittheimer and get 
her to sign an agreement to part with the 
property upon the terms specified. In order 
to bind the agreement we should pay her a 
small sum of money — oh, say one hundred 
dollars. The receipt, in the form of an agree- 
ment or contract signed by her, will bind 
the bargain in the contemplation of the 
law." 

"But it is after dark already," said Alice. 
"Wouldn't it seem rather burglarious to 
make a descent upon the old lady at this 
hour.?^" 

36 



THE FIRST PAYMENT 

''And what is more to the point," said I, 
"the detail (trifling as it may appear) of 
planking down one hundred dollars is one 
which I happen just at this moment to be 
unprepared to provide for." 

"The matter should be closed at once," 
said Mr. Denslow. '' In a deal of this kind 
delay is too often disastrous. As for the 
one hundred dollars, I will lend you that 
amount, for a small cash payment is really 
necessary to bind the bargain." 

My heart went out in gratitude to this 
noble gentleman. Never before had I felt 
more keenly the value of neighborly friend- 
ship. 

"As this business is to be transacted in 
Mrs. Baker's name," said Mr. Denslow to 
me, "it would be better for you not to go 
with us to see Mrs. Schmittheimer. The 
presence of too many strangers might make 
the old lady shy of doing what we want 
her to do. See ? " 

Yes, I comprehended the intent of the 
suggestion, and I approved it. While it 
was far from my desire to take any advan- 
tage of the Widow Schmittheimer or of 
37 



THE HOUSE 

anybody else, I recognized the propriety of 
conserving our own interests to the extent 
of suffering no rights of our own to be either 
lost or jeoparded. So while Mr. Denslow 
and Alice went upon their business mission 
I remained with Mrs. Denslow and her in- 
teresting children and elucidated my theory 
of the ice-caps of the planet Mars. In less 
than an hour Mr. Denslow and Alice re- 
turned and exhibited with delight a receipt 
signed by Katherine Elizabeth Schmitthei- 
mer, which receipt, 1 was glad to see, was 
practically a contract to sell the property 
upon the terms specified in her original talk 
with Alice. 

"The terms are certainly exceptionally ad- 
vantageous! " said Mr.^ Denslow. " It will 
take some time — perhaps a week or ten days 
— to investigate the title; when this detail is 
satisfactorily disposed of you can pay down 
your one thousand dollars and take posses- 
sion of the premises." 

Pay down one thousand dollars ? Ah, 
I had quite forgotten about tbaf. In my en- 
thusiasm over the prospect of a home of our 
own, and in the delirium induced by the de- 

38 



THE FIRST PAYMENT 

lightful chatter about the paradise into which 
that front lawn and that old rookery (as 
Adah called it) were to be transformed, I 
had suffered all thought of the essential and 
inevitable first payment of one thousand dol- 
lars to slip quite out of my mind. Now this 
awful consideration, from which there could 
be no escape, took complete and exclusive 
possession of me. Where in the wide, wide 
world was 1 to get the one thousand dollars ? 
This was the question 1 put to Alice on 
the way home from the Denslows' that mem- 
orable evening. Alice knew as well as I 
did that my salary was sufficient only to 
cover the current expenses of the family. 
She knew as well as 1 did that the royalties 
from my books the last year were as follows : 

"The Star Gamma in Leo and Its Satellite" . . . $1.00 

"Mars and Its ice-Caps " 75 

" Probable Depth of the Bottle-Neck Seas as Indi- 
cated by the Spectroscope " 30 

" Logarithms for the Nursery " 1. 15 

"Alphabetical Catalogue of Binary Stars" 65 

Total $4.45 

Alice knew, too, as well as I did, that the 
whole amount of money I received from my 

39 



THE HOUSE 

lectures before the West Side Society for the 
Diffusion of Knowledge did not exceed sev- 
enty dollars last year. She knew all these 
things, and I told her so, and then I asked 
her where or how she fancied we were going 
to raise the one thousand dollars for the first 
payment on " our house." To my surprise, 
Alice was prepared — or at least she seemed 
to be prepared for this question. 

"Reuben," said she, "\ remember having 
heard Mr. Black say one day during his visit 
to us last summer that we ought to have a 
home, and that if we ever decided to buy 
one he would try his best to help us." 

Now that Alice spoke of it I, too, recalled 
that friendly remark of Mr. Black's. A man 
who is drowning will catch at a straw. A 
man who has bought a house with nothing 
to pay for it is also predisposed to clutch. 
Our old friend Mr. Black now loomed up as 
my only sure salvation. 

Mr. Black is upward of seventy years of 
age. He and my fother went to school to- 
gether in Maine, and subsequently they lived 
near each other in Cincinnati. Mr. Black 
had been a merchant; he had retired from 
40 



THE FIRST PAYMENT 

business rich. After my father s death, while 
I was still a boy, this kind old friend was 
good to me, taking an interest in my work 
and my welfare. He had no children of his 
own, and, if he did not regard me almost as 
a son, I certainly grew to regard him almost 
as a father. Mr. Black knew the value of 
money and respected it. He gave freely, but 
only where he was assured it was deserved 
and would do actual good. A prudent, care- 
ful, economical man himself, he encouraged 
prudence and thrift in ^others. He never 
quite condoned what he regarded as ex- 
travagance upon my part in buying my fifty 
pieces of mediaeval armor, although it is to his 
munificence that I am indebted for the six- 
foot telescope with which 1 am wont to scan 
the face of the heavens. 

The upshot of talks with Alice and Adah 
and the Denslows— to say nothing of other 
neighbors with whom 1 confidentially con- 
sulted—the upshot of these talks was that 
I determined to go to Cincinnati to confer 
with Mr. Black upon the propriety of his ad- 
vancing to me the money wherewith Alice 
should make the first payment upon her— 



THE HOUSH 

I mean our house. To make short of a long 
story (for if there is one thing that I despise 
above all others it is prolixity), I went to Cin- 
cinnati and unfolded my business to my 
aged friend. Mr. Black appeared to be in no 
indecent haste to satiate my craving. He is 
not, and never was, a man of exuberant en- 
thusiasms. I was rather pained when, upon 
learning of the unparalleled bargain we had 
secured in the Schmittheimer place, he did 
not go into raptures as did Mrs. Denslow, 
and Mrs. Baylor, and Mrs. Tiltman and the 
rest of our neighbors at home. So far 
from being carried away by any whirlwind 
of enthusiasm, Mr. Black maintained a pla- 
cidity of demeanor amounting to stoicism ; 
he plied me with questions about "titles," 
and ''abstracts," and ''indentures," and 
"mortgages," and "liens," and "incum- 
brances," and other things that I actually 
knew no more about than the veriest Bush- 
man knows about the theory of Nebulae. 

To add to my embarrassment he solicited 

explicit information about the Schmittheimer 

place, in what subdivision it v/as located, 

and in what township. Had I been a verita- 

42 



THE FIRST PAYMENT 

ble human encyclopaedia I could hardly have 
satisfied that man's greed for information 
touching that particular spot. What knew 
I of tracts, of townships, of quarter sections 
or of subdivisions ? Were I filled with a 
knowledge of these humdrum common- 
places, should 1 know aught of that enthusi- 
asm which thrills the being who, after many 
and long years of weary hoping and wait- 
ing, sees the object of his desires just within 
his grasp ? Should Moses just in sight of 
the promised land be expected to give the 
dimensions of that delectable spot, and to 
locate it and bound it and map it off with 
the accuracy of a Rand & McNally town- 
ship guide ? 

I suppose that this conservatism is natural 
with some people — this lack of fervor, this 
absence of enthusiasm. Still I will admit 
Mr. Black's tranquillity — nay, his glacial com- 
posure — under the circumstances surprised^ 
and grieved me. I did not understand why 
the prospect and the promise of ''our 
house" did not set Mr. Black — and, for that 
matter, all the rest of humanity — into the 
selfsame transports of delight which I expe- 
43 



THE HOUSE 

rienced. Mind you, now, I am not com- 
plaining of nor am I finding fiiult with Mr. 
Black. 1 am simply chronicling happenings 
and observations. Mr. Black is a benevolent 
and beneficent man. He said to me at last: 
''Well, you can tell Alice that I will send 
her a draft for the money she needs, and 
within a fortnight 1 shall run up to take a 
look at your purchase." 

I was in Cincinnati three days. I should 
have been there but two. A curious hap- 
pening detained me. As I was going to the 
railway station from Mr. Black's house the 
evening of the second day I saw a man with 
a reflector telescope selling views of the 
moon at five cents apiece. The night was 
so auspicious for this diversion that 1 could 
not resist the temptation. Thus seduced, 
the time sped so quickly and the intoxication 
of the enjoyment was so complete that two 
hours slipped away before I awakened to a 
realization of my folly, which cost me some- 
what over a dollar and a half, and compelled 
me to postpone my departure for home to 
the next day. 



44 



V 
WE NEGOTIATE A MORTGAGE 

ALICE and I supposed that as soon as we 
L made that first payment upon the old 
Schmittheimer place we should take posses- 
sion of it. We had hastened negotiations 
because naturally enough we were anxious 
to share the delights of the Eden which was 
to be ours. It transpired all too early in the 
proceedings^ however, that the processes of 
the law are exceedingly exacting and pro- 
vokingly tedious. With the one thousand 
dollars which Mr. Black gave us we fancied 
that we should be able to say to the widow 
Schmittheimer: " Here is your money; now 
let us move in." 

It seems that the business is not done in 
thatbusiness-likeway. Assoon as the widow 
Schmittheimer contracted to part with her 
property at a stated price and upon stated 

45 



THE HOUSE 

terms she awoke to a realization of the fact 
that she ought to have the cooperation and 
counsel of a lawyer — although for the life 
of me I cannot see what there was left for a 
lawyer to do. With a magnanimity and 
generosity which bespoke the largeness of 
his nature, Mr. Denslow volunteered his ser- 
vices as counsellor to the wary widow, and 
1 confess that 1 should have interposed no ob- 
jection to having this versatile friend serve 
in this capacity. But the widow chose to 
decline the gratuitous services of Mr. Dens- 
low, and to pay fifty dollars for the profes- 
sional advice of a certain Lawyer Meister- 
baum, not a bad fellow, but one of those 
carping, superficial people who pretend to a 
conscientiousness and a prudence and a zeal 
which they actually do not possess. 

After repeated meetings and the most an- 
noying delays, Alice plainly told this Lawyer 
Meisterbaum that he had more than earned 
his fee by his puerile interferences with a 
prompt and amicable adjustment of the affair. 
Alice and Mr. Denslow and 1 agreed that, 
if we had been left to ourselves, we could 
have settled the business with the widow 
46 



WE NEGOTIATE A MORTGAGE 

Schmittheimer in half a day. However, I 
suppose that the lawyers must have a chance 
to make a living, and I can readily under- 
stand how a really conscientious lawyer 
might have the lingering remnant or sugges- 
tion of a desire to impress his client with the 
suspicion that he was earning his fee. 

For fully a fortnight after my return from 
Cincinnati we were harassed by the delays 
of the law, or, more exactly speaking, by 
the exasperating crochets of the lawyer. 
Meanwhile there came letters of anxious in- 
quiry from our munificent friend Mr. Black, 
for that estimable person, being aware of my 
predilection for ancient armor and other 
curios, found it difficult to disabuse his mind 
of the suspicion that his one thousand dol- 
lars might have been diverted from its origi- 
nal purpose, and misappropriated to what he 
esteemed the uses of folly. So it was with 
a feeling of great relief that finally 1 apprised 
our generous friend by telegraph that the 
transaction had been closed. 

This end had not been reached, however, 
until Alice had put her signature and her 
sea! to a curiously-phrased docuirient which 

47 



THE HOUSE 

served (as I was told) as security to the 
widow Schmittheimer in case of "default 
in payment of interest or principal." This 
instrument is called, as I remember, a deed 
of trust, which seems to be another and a 
more polite name for a mortgage. 

I protested against Alice's putting her sig- 
nature to this document, which I still recog- 
nize as a covert foe to our happiness and 
prosperity. But Mr. Denslow assured us 
that the proceeding was wholly proper and 
businesslike, and Alice paid no heed to my 
expostulations. Never before had I had any 
experience in matters or with instruments 
of this kind, and I will admit that 1 have not 
even now any idea of what the purport of 
the document in question is, further than a 
distinct intuition that its involved syntax and 
complex and cloudy phraseology bode no 
good. 

As soon as the transaction was closed the 
widow Schmittheimer burst into tears and 
loudly bewailed having parted with her 
home. I then learned that for the last ten 
days she had been almost constantly be- 
sieged by old friends of hers — the same who 
48 



WE NEGOTIATE A MORTGAGE 

had been wont to consume her coffee and 
her kuchen and who now regaled her (in 
compensation, as it were, for her past hos- 
pitality) with reproachful assurances that she 
had been virtually swindled out of her beau- 
tiful property. The grief of this lonely and 
amiable woman touched me to the core, and 
I sought to assuage her melancholy by tell- 
ing her that we should expect her to visit 
us, to which she replied amid tears and 
seeming gratitude that she would be sure 
to call every September and March, these 
being the months (as I afterward learned) in 
which the semi-annual interest, so called, fell 
due. 

As you may suppose, while Alice and I, 
under the direction of Mr. Denslow, were 
worrying ourselves nearly to death over the 
miserable details of ''closing" this transac- 
tion, our neighbors and Adah (Alice's sister) 
busied themselves with planning improve- 
ments in and for our new home. It was 
during this period that Adah met with one 
of those sorrows which benumb the sensi- 
tive feminine heart. In a moment of van- 
dalism ever to be deprecated, little Erasmus 
49 



THE HOUSE 

discovered and took possession of that copy 
of ''The National Architect" which contained 
the picture of the plutocratic villa at Narra- 
gansett Pier. This precious relic was put by 
the heedless boy to the base use of serving 
as a tail to a kite, and during one of the 
high winds the kite blew away, and there 
was an end to Adah's most precious pos- 
session ! Thus perished the link that united 
Adah to the sweetest dream of her maturer 
years. 

However, this mishap did not wholly 
abate Adah's interest in our affairs. In an- 
swer to Adah's solicitation a long letter had 
come from Maria, bearing the blissful prom- 
ise that a carefully made plan of Maria's 
house of St. Joe (drawn by Maria herself 
upon a fly leaf excerpted from Maria's favor- 
ite volume, ' ' The Life of Mary Lyon ") would 
soon be forwarded for our enlightenment 
and delectation. Maria felt kindly toward 
us, and her sympathies had been awakened 
to their very depths by a tender souvenir 
Adah had sent her — a leaf plucked from one 
of the lilac bushes on the old Schmittheimer 
place. Both Adah and Maria belong to that 
50 



WE NEGOTIATE A MORTGAGE 

old-school class of proper feminine folk who 
never pick but always pluck flowers. 

Well, Adah and the neighbors kept as busy 
as a bee in a bottle planning changes that 
they deemed necessary in our house. When 
we got through with that dilly-dallying, 
shilly-shallying Lawyer Meisterbaum, Alice 
and 1 found out that Adah and the neigh- 
bors had left little for us to do except to ap- 
prove their plans and pay for the execution 
thereof. 

There had been a kind of tacit under- 
standing all along that such changes as we 
made in the Schmittheimer house should 
be superintended by an architect-carpenter 
who was cordially recommended by Mrs. 
Denslow. This important person's name 
was Silas Plum, and he had a shop in Os- 
good Avenue, opposite one of our most 
fashionable and most prosperous cemeteries. 
Mrs. Denslow always called him Uncle Si, 
and this circumstance rather prejudiced me 
in favor of him. The facts, too, that Uncle 
Si was not overcrowded with business, that 
he was considerate in his charges, and that 
he was of so great versatility that he could 
51 



THE HOUSE 

boss the plumbing as well as the carpenter- 
ing — these facts confirmed us in the opinion 
that Uncle Si was just the man for our needs. 
I went with Mrs. Denslow to call upon 
this gifted and honest son of toil. His mod- 
est place of business was indicated to the 
passer-by by this insinuating sign : 



Silas Plum, Carpenter & Builder. 
Coffin Boxes a Speciality. 



I am not a superstitious person. I think 
I have already told you so. Still I have in- 
stincts and intuitions; and you, who are not 
wholly dead to the subtle influences of the 
more delicate sentiments, will probably sym- 
pathize with me when I admit that Mr. 
Plum's sign did not inspire me with that 
enthusiasm which is at least comforting to 
the possessor. The reference to Mr. Plum's 
''speciality" was what cast a temporary 
gloom over me, but Mrs. Denslow was not 
one of those who suffer a detail so insignifi- 



WE NEGOTIATE A MORTGAGE 

cant as this to stand in her way; so I was 
bounced into Uncle Si's shop and presented 
to Uncle Si in propria persona. 

Uncle Si impressed me as being a very 
trustworthy man. He looked not unlike 
myself; his gaunt, sinewy frame betokened 
severe practicability, and his calm blue eyes 
and large straight mouth combined to give 
his face an unmistakable and convincing ex- 
pression of candor. Of speech he was mon- 
osyllabic, and this peculiarity pleased me, 
for 1 have always admired and always culti- 
vated directness and terseness, there being 
nothing else more distasteful to me than the 
prolixity, diffuseness, pleonasm, amplifica- 
tion, redundance, andcopiaverborumofsome 
people. I told Uncle Si all about the new 
purchase we had made, and I drew upon a 
pine board a fairly correct plan of the Schmitt- 
heimer house as it now stood. 1 gave him 
to understand that numerous and important 
changes were required, and that I desired to 
secure from him an estimate as to the cost 
of those changes. 

"I can't tell how much it will be till I 
know what you want," said Uncle Si. 
53 



THE HOUSE 

I recognized the justness of this remark, 
yet at the same time I felt bitter toward 
Uncle Si for not knowing without being told. 
To tell the truth, /didn't know. 1 had heard 
Alice and Adah talking in a general way 
about ''closets" and a "new hall," and 
" hardwood floors" and — and — and things 
of that kind; I remembered having heard 
some discussion of a prospective "addition," 
and— yes — I now recalled that the front 
porch would have to be rebuilt. Hoping to 
conceal my utter ignorance, 1 told Uncle Si 
that we wanted " lots of changes," but this 
would not satisfy the exasperating man; he 
insisted upon particulars, upon "specifica- 
tions," as he termed them. 

Of course I was unable to give them ; so 
was Mrs. Denslow. The only really distinct 
idea Mrs. Denslow had of the transformation 
contemplated by Alice was one concerning 
the front lawn, and involving gravel walks 
between flower beds and under umbrageous 
trees; exotics perennially in bloom; Swiss 
tree boxes, from which the lark carolled by 
day and the nightingale warbled at night; an 
artificial lake, in which goldfishes swam and 

54 



WE NEGOTIATE A MORTGAGE 

upon whose translucent bosom majestic 
swans glided gracefully — 1 assure you that 
Mrs. Denslow has the soul of a poet! 

But these delightful fancies did not interest 
Uncle Si, because they did not concern him 
or his trade. So we compromised the mat- 
ter by appointing an hour that evening for 
Uncle Si to call and talk it all over with Alice. 
This was, seemingly, the only way out of 
the dilemma. All 1 knew was what I didn't 
want, or, rather, what zve didn't want. Our 
many and long and earnest conversations 
with the neighbors had determined numerous 
important points. We didn't want a roof 
like the Baylors' roof; nor water-pipes like 
the Rushes'; nor backstairs like the Tilt- 
mans'; nor plastering like the Denslows'; 
nor dormer-windows like the Carters'; nor 
a kitchen sink like the Plunkers' ; nor smoky 
chimneys like the Bollingers' ; nor a skimpy 
little conservatory like the Mayhews' — in 
foct, there were so many things we didn't 
want that it seemed to me that if Uncle 
Si had been moderately ingenious or had 
given his imagination full rein, he might 
have guessed what we did want, and so 
55 



THE HOUSE 

have gone ahead without fear of incurring 
our displeasure. 

It was perhaps better, however, that, be- 
fore undertaking his task, Uncle Si should 
require some hint or intimation of what 
would be expected of him. I am the last 
man in the world to discourage what is ordi- 
narily regarded and accepted as reasonable 
precaution against embarrassment and ad- 
versity. 



5(> 



VI 

I AM BESOUGHT TO BUY THINGS 

ALICE had her talk with Uncle Si and 
/a issued therefrom with the conviction 
that Uncle Si was a paragon of integrity and 
carpentering skill. As for Uncle Si, he must 
have gathered together a pretty fair general 
idea of what Alice wanted, for he promised 
to return the next day with plans and details 
and with an estimate of what the contem- 
plated improvements would cost. 

Meanwhile another complication had 
arisen. The people to whom the widow 
Schmittheimer had rented the lower part 
of the house declined to vacate the premises 
unless we paid them a bonus of fifteen 
dollars. Alice indignantly protested that 
we had no fifteen dollars to throw away, 
and I recognized the truth of this proposi- 

57 



THE HOUSE 

tion. Still, a visit to the recalcitrant tenants 
convinced me that they were poor folk and 
could ill afford to bear the expense of moving. 
Another circumstance that made me feel 
rather kindly toward these people was that 
their name was Mitchell, and, although they 
made no such claim, it pleased me to fancy 
that they were of kin to that distinguished 
family which has contributed so largely to 
the glory of native astronomical research. 

Actuated, therefore, by the most honorable 
impulses, I gave these people fifteen dollars 
which 1 borrowed for that purpose from my 
most estimable neighbor, Mrs. Tiltman, upon 
the understanding that I should pay it back 
when I heard from "The Sidereal Torch," to 
which publication I had sent a carefully pre- 
pared essay on Encke's comet. In this wise 
a matter which might have caused us much 
delay and vexation was quickly and ami- 
cably disposed of I did not tell Alice of 
what I had done, for although Alice is (as I 
have already assured you) the most amiable 
of her sex, she cannot brook what she re- 
gards as an imposition, and this inclination 
to resent seeming overbearance in others has 
58 



1 AM BESOUGHT TO BUY THINGS 

not unfrequently put us to expense and in- 
volved us in embarrassment. 

Another episode which is still fresh in my 
memory I cannot forbear relating. Alice 
came to me one day not long ago— it was 
perhaps three weeks since — and insisted 
that I should attend to having the correct 
name of the avenue in which we were to 
live put upon the lamp-posts at the corners 
of that avenue. I could not guess what 
Alice meant until she informed me that, al- 
though the name of that thoroughfare had by 
ordinance of the City Council been changed 
from Mush Street to Clarendon Avenue, the 
old name of Mush Street had (by a singular 
inadvertence) been suffered to remain upon 
the lamp-posts along that highway. 

''The idea!" cried Alice, indignantly. 
" Do you suppose I would live upon Mush 
Street? Do you suppose I ever would have 
bought that house and lot if I had suspected 
even for a moment that they were not in 
Clarendon Avenue.^ Mush Street is just 
horrid — everybody else thinks so, and I 
know it! I won't have it Mush Street; it 's 
Clarendon Avenue, and 1 'm going to have 

59 



THE HOUSE 

Clarendon Avenue engraved on my cards! 
Reuben, you must see at once that the lamp- 
posts are changed." 

I confess that so far as I myself am con- 
cerned it matters not whether my abiding 
place be in Mush Street or in Clarendon Ave- 
nue so long as I am comfortably bedded and 
fed and my family are well provided for. 
Names are, at best, arbitrary things. More- 
over, I was well aware (and you will see 
for yourself if you consult a map of our city) 
that that thoroughfare which has been re- 
named Clarendon Avenue is actually Mush 
Street, or, at any rate, a continuation of 
Mush Street. However, 1 had a regard for 
that sense of feminine pride which made 
Alice revolt against Mush Street. I am aware 
that the conspicuous characteristics of Mush 
Street for many miles are goats and fortune- 
tellers and coal yards and rumshops and mid- 
wiveries; these glaring features are by no 
means such as the elite of our society care to 
affect. Conceding that my indifference to 
these idiosyncrasies should not be suffered 
to stand in the way of the natural current of 
Alice's womanly pride, I promised to do 
60 



I AM BESOUGHT TO BUY THINGS 

my best toward effecting what Alice re- 
quired, and I am now engaged upon a me- 
morial to the Mayor and the Board of Alder- 
men pray ing that the lamp-posts in Clarendon 
Avenue be purged of that lettering which 
suggests the commonplace antecedents of 
that thoroughfare. 

I find that Alice is not alone in her wretch- 
edness. It appears that our friends Lawyer 
Miles and Mr. Redleigh and their flimilies 
are at present engaged in the momentous 
task of getting the name of the street in 
which they live changed from Cemetery 
Avenue to Sportland Place. And our other 
friends two blocks west of us are greatly 
agitated just now because the name of their 
aristocratic thoroughflire has, by a whim of 
the municipal authorities, been changed from 
Alexander Avenue to Osgood Street. I have 
mentioned these facts to Alice, but no sense 
of that sympathy which is said to arise from 
the companionship of misery seems to recon- 
cile my dear wife to the plebeian association 
which the mere mention of Mush Street 
suggests. 

The Sunday morning after we had actu- 



THE HOUSE 

ally bought the Schmittheimer place the city 
newspapers made a record of the event in 
their ''society column," and added that it 
was " understood that in their beautiful new 
home Prof, and Mrs. Baker would entertain 
lavishly." I was inclined to take exception 
to this item, which I regarded as a vulgar 
parade of our private affairs ; moreover, the 
innuendo was wholly untruthful. Alice and 
I did not intend to "entertain" at all; we 
could not afford to ''entertain." What 
would Mr. Black say if by chance he were 
to get hold of a copy of any of those Sunday 
morning newspapers and read that menda- 
cious paragraph ? He would not only lament 
the one thousand dollars which he had just 
advanced; worse than that, he would for- 
ever shut down on those other acts of sim- 
ilar generosity which, 1 am free to say, Alice 
and I counted among the pleasing proba- 
bilities of the near future. 

I repeat that this untruthful notoriety 
through the medium of the "society col- 
umn" displeased me, and I am sure I should 
have spoken my mind very freely about it if 
I had not heard Alice reading the item with 
62 



I AM BESOUGHT TO BUY THINGS 

evident gusto to her sister Adah. My amaze- 
ment was increased when Alice asked me to 
secure a dozen extra papers for her, as she 
wished to send marked copies to certain 
fashionable society acquaintances and to sev- 
eral of her relatives in Maine! 1 can picture 
the rural astonishment with- which Cousin 
Jabez Fothergill of Biddeford Pool and the 
Strattons of North Moosehead will read of 
our good fortune. I more than half suspect 
that in a moment of triumphant revenge and 
in a spirit of cruel malice Alice sent a copy 
of the paper to Miss Mears at Pocatapaug. 
Miss Mears is little to me now, but once 1 
called her Hepsival, and even after these 
many years of separation I would fain undo 
any act of spite which her successful rival, 
Alice, might attempt. 

The Monday following the publication of 
this strangely malevolent item was an un- 
usually busy day with me. I seemed sud- 
denly to have become the target of every 
man who had anything to sell. 1 was waited 
upon by fruit-tree venders, lightning-rod 
agents, fire underwriters, plumbers, gas- 
titters, painters, and an innumerable army of 
63 



THE HOUSE 

persons having horses, cows, pigs, chickens, 
shade trees, patent hitching posts, smoke- 
consumers, Pasteur filters, shrubbery, lawn 
statuary, fancy poultry, garden utensils, and 
patent paving to dispose of. I really cannot 
realize how I got rid of them all, for a more 
affable and persuasive lot of gentlemen 1 
never before had met with. Come to think 
of it, I have not got rid of them. They con- 
tinue to cultivate my acquaintance and on 
account of their attentions (polite but per- 
sistent) I have been compelled to lay aside 
temporarily my investigation into the char- 
acter of the atmosphere around Aldebaran, a 
most delicate work upon which I am hop- 
ing to rear the superstructure of my fame. 

I admit that these attentions rather flatter 
me; it is possible that after a time — say a 
year or two — I may weary of the courteous 
gentleman who is now seeking to sell me a 
dozen apple-trees, one-third cash, balance 
in ten years. I may, in the lapse of time, 
become indifferent to the blandishments of 
him who daily for the last two months has 
been trying to convince me that I cannot 
reach the summum bonum of human happi- 
64 



1 AM BESOUGHT TO BUY THINGS 

ness until I have invested four dollars in 
Perkins' patent automatic garden rake and 
step-ladder combination. The gentleman 
who has the smoke-consumer, the gentle- 
man who deals in shrubbery, the gentleman 
who advocates lightning rods, and the other 
gentlemen who represent the tantamount 
interests of lawn statuary, fancy poultry, 
patent paving, etc., etc., etc. — 1 may, in the 
flight of years, become insensible to their 
charms, for there is no change that is not 
rendered possible by the capricious offices 
of Time. But at present I can hardly realize 
how these people can ever be other than 
they now are — near to me, as I know, and 
dear to me, as 1 feel. 

I did not suspect, before I became a house- 
holder, that the mere possession of property 
was capable of making a man an object of 
such unflagging interest to his fellow crea- 
tures. I find it very pleasing — the solicitude 
with which these newly-made acquaintances 
(the venders, agents, and other polite gen- 
tlemen) regard me, and attend upon me, 
and seek to gain my approval. It is sweet 
to be beloved. 

65 



THE HOUSE 

In the very height of this enjoyment, how- 
ever, there are considerations which serve 
to cause me feelings of disquietude. My 
conscience constantly reproves me for the 
deception which 1 am practising upon these 
people. It occurred to me several weeks 
ago that I had no right to pose as the pro- 
prietor of our new house. The new house 
and its circumadjacent real estate belong not 
to me, but to Alice and to her heirs and as- 
signs forever. 1 have no proprietary rights 
in that house or upon that expansive lawn ; 
If I am there, it is simply as a piece of furni- 
ture, like the stove, or the clock, or the cen- 
tre-table. I am simply tolerated, perhaps as 
an object of ornament, perhaps as an object 
of use. This is a humiliating confession; 
the thought that it is actually true pains me 
poignantly. 

I never supposed 1 was a moral coward, 
but I must be; otherwise I would weeks 
ago have called an open-air mass-meeting 
of the apple-tree agents, the fire-underwrit- 
ers, the patent pavers and the others, and 
confessed to them that their attentions were 
misdirected, and that 1 was not in fact the 

66 



I AM BESOUGHT TO BUY THINGS 

fortunate being whose lot they sought to 
better. 

A strangely craven consideration withheld 
me from this manly course. 1 suspected that 
as soon as I divulged the truth I would be 
forsaken by this troupe — this retinue of 
unctuous courtiers. In my imaginings I be- 
held myself deserted and alone, while the 
vast army of my quondam attendants and 
flatterers tagged after and surrounded and 
fawned upon Alice, the real purchaser and 
actual owner of our new place! 

1 make a candid exposition of these things, 
not more for the purpose of relieving my 
conscience of its long pent-up misery than 
for the purpose of disclosing that which may 
happily serve as a warning to my fellow- 
beings. I long ago discovered that one of 
the compensations of human folly is the ex- 
ample which that folly affords for the discreet 
guidance of others. 



67 



VII 
OUR PLANS FOR IMPROVEMENTS 

THE result of the numerous conferences 
between Alice and Uncle Si was rather 
surprising to me. It involved the expendi- 
ture of somewhat more than three thousand 
dollars. However, a letter had been re- 
ceived from our beneficent friend, Mr. Black, 
in which that estimable gentleman expressed 
the conviction that we ought not to try to 
live in a house that did not have the ordi- 
nary conveniences of a modern city home, 
and that we should add whatever improve- 
ments we deemed necessary to our comfort ; 
these pleasing expressions of opinion were 
supplemented by the still more pleasing in- 
timation that Mr. Black would advance us 
whatever sum was necessary to the provi- 
sion of the changes and innovations we 
deemed expedient. It was evident that Mr. 
68 



OUR PLANS FOR IMPROVEMENTS 

Black was most kindly disposed toward us ; 
at the same time our munificent patron took 
occasion to caution us against extravagance 
and to impress upon us a sense of the neces- 
sity of constant and rigorous economy — 
''especially and particularly in the direction 
of those vanities which simply gratify an 
individual whim, and are of no practical 
value whatsoever." 

Alice read this last sentence aloud to me 
several times, for it expressed exactly her 
opinion of my fondness for mediaeval armor. 
I am making no complaint of the sly satisfac- 
tion which Alice seemingly takes in twitting 
me with my weakness. I expect to have a 
glorious revenge by and by when we move 
into our new house, and when Alice dis- 
covers how very appropriate and ornamen- 
tal my mediaeval armor will be, set up 
against the walls and in the corners of the 
front hall. 

Fortified by the letter from Mr. Black, we 
had little difficulty in planning the most 
charming improvements. I make use of the 
plural personal pronoun, although if I were 
testifying upon oath I should feel compelled 
69 



THE HOUSE 

to admit that I myself had precious little to 
do with the planning. It grieved me con- 
siderably to observe that while the neigh- 
bors generally, and Mrs. Denslow particu- 
larly, were diligently consulted as to every 
detail of the new house, an expression of 
my wishes, views, and advice was not only 
not solicited, but, when volunteered, seemed 
to be regarded as an impertinence, it oc- 
curred to me at such times that prosperity 
by no means improved Alice's temper, but 
I should perhaps have taken into considera- 
tion the circumstance that this particular 
period was one of exceptional excitement, 
and that had the same sense of responsibility 
which burdened Alice been put upon me, I, 
too, should have exhibited an irritability 
wholly foreign to my nature under normal 
conditions and environments. 

It was determined to reconstruct certain 
parts of the old Schmittheimer residence and 
to build an addition of two stories, the first- 
floor room to be devoted to the purposes of 
a library or living room, and the room in 
the second story to be Alice's bed-chamber. 
A vast numberof closets were contemplated, 
70 



OUR PLANS FOR IMPROVEMENTS 

for, as you are presumably aware, woman- 
kind are passionately fond of closets, and 
iiappy, thrice happy, is the husband who is 
accorded the inestimable boon of suspend- 
ing his Sunday suit from a nail therein. As 
for myself, I have always regarded the aver- 
age closet as an ingenious device of the evil 
one for the propagation and encouragement 
of moths. 

Among other contemplated innovations 
were a butler's pantry and a conservatory. 
I approved of the latter, but not of the 
former. I foresaw in that butler's pantry a 
pretext, if not a reason, for the purchase of 
china, crockery, and glassware, to be used 
only when we had company and to be hid- 
den away at other times until broken by 
careless servants. 

A conservatory had for years been one 
of my most pleasing desires. Although I 
know little of them, I am fond of flowers, 
particularly of those which others care for 
and which do not breed or abound in creep- 
ing things. But the use to which I was 
ambitious to put my — or our — conserva- 
tory was that of an aviary. I love all pet 

71 



THE HOUSE 

birds, and one of my sweetest day dreams 
has been that which possessed me of a 
large glass room or bower well stocked 
with canaries, linnets, bullfinches, robins, 
wrens, Java sparrows, love birds, and paro- 
quets. I have often pictured to myself the 
delight I should experience in entering into 
this heaven of song and in caressing these 
feathered pets, in feeding them and in teach- 
ing them pretty tricks and games. I recall 
those pleasant boyhood days when a pet 
crow, and a flock of pigeons, and two baby 
hawks afforded me rapture and solicitude 
combined. Then followed an experience 
with a matronly hen and her brood of chicks. 
I am not ashamed to say that 1 loved these 
friends of my youth and that I still reverence 
their memories. Nor am 1 ashamed to tell 
you that for several years after 1 reached ma- 
turity a particular object of my affections was 
a wee canary bird that sang sweet songs to 
me and played daintily with my finger when- 
ever I thrust it into the little rascal's cage. 
Alice insists that I actually cried when that 
silly little creature died ; may be I did, for 1 
am a very, very foolish fellow. 

72 



OUR. PLANS FOR IMPROVEMENTS 

One of the things I have never been able 
to understand is why Alice, with all her gen- 
tleness and tenderness, has so violent an 
antipathy to bird and brute pets. Alice ac- 
tually seems to dislike birds and dogs with 
the same zeal with which I love them. At 
times — you will hardly believe it — Alice 
has exhibited Neronian cruelty and hardness 
of heart. I remember that on one occasion 
she caught a harmless, innocent little blue 
mouse in the pantry. She fully intended to 
drown the helpless creature — as if this world 
were not big enough for mice and men to 
live and be happy in! I had great difhculty 
in rescuing the tiny rodent from his captor, 
and 1 remember the satisfliction I had in 
giving him his liberty under the kitchen 
porch of neighbor Rush's house next 
door. 

At first Alice was kindly disposed toward 
the conservatory scheme, but in an un- 
guarded moment one day I chanced to breathe 
a suggestion that a combination conserva- 
tory-bird cage would do very nicely, and 
that settled the fate of my pleasant dreamings 
forever. 

73 



THE HOUSE 

But I seldom argue these things with 
Alice. The conservatory is now a shattered 
dream, and the butler's pantry is inevitable. 
The graceful alcove, which was to have been 
the conservatory (with aviary features), is to 
be provided with a permanent, stationary 
seat which Adah is to upholster in a pattern 
which Maria has promised to send from St. 
Joe. Whenever I think of it there rise up 
before my mind's eye visions of stolen meet- 
ings in that alcove, and whispered inter- 
views, in which I fancy I see our daughter 
Fanny figuring as an active participant, and 
then I devoutly pray that little Erasmus' 
vigilance may be increased a thousand- 
fold. 

I was informed in good time that the 
library was to be virtually the living-room for 
the family. It was here that casual callers 
were to be received and entertained; here 
the errand boys who delivered packages 
from the downtown shops were to leave 
their goods and get their receipts ; here the 
laundryman was to wait every Monday 
morning while Adah gathered up my heb- 
domadal bundle of linen for the wash ; here 

74 



OUR PLANS FOR IMPROVEMENTS 

were the children to gather for a frolic every 
evening after the humble vesper meal. 

1 am wondering whether Alice and Adah 
and the neighbors will approve of my dearly 
cherished plan to have one of the tall clocks 
stationed in one corner, and my very old 
Suffolk oak table in another corner, and in 
still another the curious old sofa which Aunt 
'Gusty has promised to send me from Darien, 
Georgia. 1 am painfully aware that Alice 
and Adah and the neighbors regard the 
beautiful furniture in which 1 delight as 
''old trumpery." 

When we first looked at the Schmitt- 
heimer place Alice exclaimed, upon being- 
ushered into one of the rooms: "Now this 
is just the room for Reuben and his old trump- 
ery ! " It is twenty-two feet long and eigh- 
teen feet wide, and there are windows to the 
north, west, and south. Curiously enough, 
the chimney runs up through the middle of 
this room, presenting an appearance at once 
novel and grotesque. Alice assures me that 
this will prove a unique and charming fea- 
ture, for she intends to put innumerable 
shelves around the chimney, and place 

75 



THE HOUSE 

thereon the interesting nnd valuable curios, 
the purchase of which has kept me involved 
in financial embarrassment for the last twenty 
years. 

Alice has settled it in her own mind just 
where in my new room each bit of my be- 
loved furniture shall be located — the ma- 
hogany chest of drawers, the old secretary, 
the four-post bedstead, the haircloth trunk, 
the oak book-case, the corn-husk rocker, 
the cuckoo clock, the Dutch cabinet — yes, 
each blessed piece has already had its place 
assigned to it, even to the old red cricket 
which Miss Anna Rice sent me from her 
Connecticut home twelve years ago. I am 
indeed the most fortunate of men ; for who 
but my Alice could be so sweet and self- 
abnegatory as to take upon her own dear 
little shoulders the burden of responsibilities 
that elsewise would weigh upon her hus- 
band } 



76 



VIII 
THE VANDALS BEGIN THEIR WORK 

AT the regular April meeting of the Lake 
. Shore Society of Antiquarians 1 met my 
old and valued friend, Belville Rock, and told 
him of the important venture which Alice 
had made. He seemed greatly pleased at 
the prospect of our having a home of our 
own, and after making careful inquiries into 
the extent and character of the improvements 
we contemplated he bade me tell Alice that 
he wanted to pay the bill for the painting of 
the exterior of the house. " I desire to do 
somewhat toward beautifying your prem- 
ises," said he, ''and I don't know that I can 
do better than to paint the house. You 
understand, of course, that my long and 
intimate acquaintance with you and Alice 
warrants me in proposing as a friendly act 
what elsewise might be regarded as an 
impertinence." 

77 . 



THE HOUSE 

I hastened to assure Mr. Rock that both 
Alice and I knew him to be utterly incapable 
of any word or deed that could by any 
means be misconstrued into an impertinence. 
We had known this amiable gentleman for 
the period of twenty years. It was he who 
proposed me for membership of the Lake 
Shore Society of Antiquarians, and it was he 
who provided the means wherewith I pub- 
lished my first book, entitled ''A Critical 
View of the Causes of Eclamptic and Trau- 
matic Idiocy." 

This was at the time in my career when I 
supposed I had good reason to believe that 
all human mental and physical ills are di- 
rectly traceable to the influence of the moon, 
which theory was suggested to me by the 
discovery that cabbages thrive when planted 
in the first quarter of the moon and invari- 
ably pine when planted in the full of the 
moon. I am still more or less of a believer 
in this theory, and it is my purpose to renew 
my investigations and experiments in this 
direction, particularly so far as cabbages are 
involved, for 1 mean to have a kitchen gar- 
den (with Alice's permission) as soon as we 

. 78 



THE VANDALS BEGIN THEIR WORK 

move into our new place in Mush Street — 
pardon me, I mean Clarendon Avenue. 

Belville Rock has always exhibited a 
friendly interest in me and my welfare. He 
is president of a savings bank and is con- 
cerned in numerous mercantile and spec- 
ulative enterprises. He belongs to many 
clubs and social organizations, and is presi- 
dent of the Sons of Vermont, the Sons of 
New York, the Sons of Rhode Island, the 
Sons of Michigan, and the other Sons who 
have effected formal organizations in this city. 
He is treasurer of most of the current enter- 
prises and he is recognized as a leader of 
distinct influence in the several political par- 
ties which control public affairs locally. 

Mr. Rock commands the happy faculty of 
divorcing himself wholly from business dur- 
ing those hours which he has dedicated to 
sociability. He declines to discuss monetary 
matters outside his room at the bank. 1 recall 
how, upon several occasions when 1 have 
approached him upon the delicate subject of 
negotiating a trifling temporary loan, he has 
dismissed the matter by reminding me that 
he had certain days which he set apart for 
79 



THE HOUSE 

business of this character, and that at other 
times he devoted himself exclusively to the 
consideration of other things. 

I recall, too, that after persistent inquiry 
(having, possibly, selfish ends in view), I 
learned from Cashier Bolton, who is Mr. 
Rock's marble-hearted alter ego, that Mr. 
Rock's hours for the consideration of all ap- 
plications for personal accommodations were 
from 7.55 to 8 a.m., every other Thursday. 
This may strike the average person as a 
unique singularity, but I find it easy to un- 
derstand how a man so numerously inter- 
ested in affairs as Mr. Rock is should find it 
imperative to regulate his business and social 
conduct with the most methodical and most 
exacting system. 

You can depend upon it that I lost no 
time in apprising Alice and Adah and our 
neighbors of Mr. Rock's munificent propo- 
sition, and I hardly need assure you that by 
all Mr. Rock's generosity was warmly ap- 
plauded. The incident gave rise to a new 
phase in the sequence of events, for imme- 
diately a discussion arose as to the color 
which we ought to paint our new house, 
80 



THE VANDALS BEGIN THEIR WORK 

and this discussion continued with increas- 
ing vigor for several days. Adah was char- 
acteristically earnest in her advocacy of a 
soft cream yellow, that being the shade 
adopted by Maria when she repainted her 
St. Joe domicile — a soft cream yellow, with 
the blinds in a delicate brown, that was 
Adah's choice as inspired by her memory of 
Maria's habitation. The Baylors suggested 
a poetic grayish tint, which they insisted 
would look specially pretty through the 
foliage of the fine old trees in the front 
yard. The Tiltmans preferred a light brown, 
and the Rushes a bright yellow. As for 
Mrs. Denslow, she raised her voice in favor 
of ** white, with green blinds," for, as she 
wisely argued, it was not possible to find a 
more appropriate combination for a house 
that had been a farmhouse and that would 
retain (even after we had rehabilitated it) the 
most salient characteristics of a farmhouse. 

Alice and 1 agreed with Mrs. Denslow (as 
we generally do), and our determination was 
confirmed when we subsequently learned, 
upon inquiry of Mr. Krome, the painter, 
that white paint was as expensive a paint as 
81 



THE HOUSE 

could be selected. It was our desire, in our 
choice of paint, to do nothing Hkely to lessen 
or to detract from the lustre of the princeli- 
nessofMr. Rock's liberality. Mr. Rock had 
set no limitations to his munificence; fin be 
it from us to do that which might be con- 
strued wrongfully as inappreciation of that 
munificence. It was the part of friendship 
to premise that Mr. Rock's intentions were 
large, and then it behooved us to see that 
those intentions were carried out upon a 
scale of equal scope. We decided, there- 
fore, that the paint should be white, and 
that it should be carriage paint. 

Uncle Si had advised us to have plenty of 
light and air admitted to " the addition " by 
means of numerous windows. According 
to the rude plan he submitted for Alice's ap- 
proval, "the addition" when completed 
would have looked like a collection of win- 
dows of every size and shape. This was 
before Mr. Rock offered to paint the house. 
After Mr. Rock's proposal was made to and 
accepted by us it occurred to us that it would 
result in a considerable saving to us if we 
were to limit the number of windows and 
82 



THE VANDALS BEGIN THEIR WORK 

devote the space (thus economized) to clap- 
boarding. This would involve a larger ex- 
pense upon Mr. Rock's part, but it could 
not be denied that Mr. Rock could better 
afford paying for paint than we could afford 
paying for window frames and glass. 

1 think it likely that I should have called 
on Mr. Rock to learn his preference in the 
matter had the "every other Thursday" 
been nearer at hand. But Mr. Krome, the 
painter, and Uncle Si, the boss carpenter, re- 
c]uired a speedy decision, and so we went 
ahead without consulting our munificent 
friend. Mr. Krome thereupon volunteered 
to do our painting by the square yard, in- 
stead of by the square foot (as is the custom- 
ary proceeding) ; he admitted, with a candor 
rarely met with in his profession, he could 
as well afford to do our house in white car- 
riage paint by the square yard as other rival 
painters could afford to do it in common 
white lead by the square foot. I assured 
Mr. Krome of my determination to spare no 
pains to cooperate with him in every honest 
and ambitious endeavor at Mr. Rock's ex- 
pense. 

83 * 



THE HOUSE 

So now, the widow Schmittheimer having 
vacated the premises, the work of rehabiH- 
tation began in earnest. Men with wheel- 
barrows and spades and picks made their 
appearance and started in to demolish walls 
and to excavate sand at a marvelous rate. 
Presently a cavernous space yawned where 
it was proposed to locate the cellar where 
the steam-heating apparatus was to stand. 
The sand taken from this spot was barrowed 
out and dumped in a pile over the horse- 
radish bed in the back yard. 

This was the first piece of vandalism I 
noticed, and I protested against it. Not long 
thereafter I discovered that the workmen 
engaged at battering down the partitions in 
the upper part of the house were piling up 
the refuse scantling and laths on the currant 
and gooseberry bushes in the side yard. 1 
protested again, and so 1 kept on protesting, 
for hardly a day passed that I did not detect 
the workmen about that house at some piece 
of lawlessness jeoparding the cherry trees, 
or the lilac bushes, or the tulips, or the roses, 
or the peonies, or the asparagus bed. 

Cui bono — to what good ? With as much 
84 



THE VANDALS BEGIN THEIR WORK 

effect might the wild man of Borneo rail at 
Capella because her silvery, twinkling light 
is seventy-one years in reaching this distant 
planet. 

I am unalterably opposed to the wanton 
destruction of life. Moreover, it seems to 
me that the trees, the shrubbery, the vines 
and the flowers on the Schmittheimer place 
have certain rights which the invaders 
ought to respect. At any rate, I spent the 
better part of two days transplanting a num- 
ber of the currant and gooseberry bushes, 
and although 1 had a stiff neck and a very 
lame back for a considerable time thereafter 
I felt more than compensated therefor by the 
conviction that I had saved the lives of friends 
who would duly give me practical proof of 
their gratitude. 

There were certain acts of lawlessness 
that I could neither prevent nor repair. 
One grieved me particularly. The plum- 
ber hitched his horse to a tree in the front 
yard one morning, and, before the damage 
he had done was discovered, the herbivorous 
beast had eaten up a white lilac bush and a 
snowball bush, thus completing a destruc- 



TUB HOUSH 

lion for which there would secin to be no 
compensation. Upon another occasion a 
stray cow invaded the premises and laid 
waste the tulip bed and chewed offthe tender 
buds on the choicest of the rose bushes. 

Rut the most extensive and the most hide- 
ous depredations were committed by human 
beings under pretext of necessity and of in- 
terest in my behalf. I refer now to thosQ 
remorseless men who came first and tore up 
the beautiful lawn and cut away the roots 
of trees and digged a deep, long pit in which 
to lay sewer pipes; who came again and 
committed another similar atrocity under 
plea of laying a water-pipe; who came still 
again and for the third time abused and 
seared and seamed and blighted that lawn 
for the alleged purpose of laying a gas-pipe! 
O civilization ! what crimes are committed in 
thy name! 

These experiences sobered and saddened 
me to a degree that was strangely new to 
me. At times I felt embittered against all 
the world. But as there is no cloud that has 
not its silver lining, so there were pleasant lit- 
tle happenings which ever and anon seemed 

.So 



TflH VANIMLS BEGIN THEIR WORK 

to relieve my despondency. On one occa- 
sion Uncle Si said to me cheerily: "We 're 
going to have good luck from this time on." 
" What do you mean.^" I asked. "Come 
along with me and see for yourself," said 
he. 

Uncle Si led the way into the house and 
down into the basement. He pointed to an 
old valise that, spread open, lay under the 
stairs amid the debris which the masons had 
left. 

"That 's what I mean," said Uncle Si, 
"and it brings good luck every time! " 

1 saw that the old and abandoned valise 
contained a tabby cat at whose generous dugs 
six wee kittens were tugging industriously. 
The widow Schmittheimer had left her home 
and gone elsewhere, but foithful tabby re- 
mained behind, true to that instinct which 
makes the feline unalterably loyal to locality. 

I never before liked cats; 1 have always 
positively disliked them because they kill 
birds. Yet, do you know, I actually felt my 
heart go out in tenderness to this particular 
mother tabby and her mewing kits. It oc- 
cuired to me, as she lay there, blinking and 

H7 



THE HOUSE 

purring in apparent amiability and in evident 
pride, that here at least was a cat that would 
not kill birds; if so, 1 would adopt her, and 
as for the kittens — yes, I would adopt them, 
too. 

I made up my mind that I would name the 
kittens after my most intimate neighbors; 
one should be Baylor, another Tiltman, an- 
other Rush, a fourth Denslow, the fifth Bro we, 
and the sixth Roth. I am sorry there are 
not two more, for I should like to honor my 
two munificent patrons, Mr. Black and Mr. 
Rock. But there must be a limit to human 
possibilities. As for the mother cat herself, 
there was but one thing for me to do; I had 
to name her Alice, of course. 



IX 
NEIGHBOR MACLEOD'S THISTLE 

THE incident of the tabby cat's appear- 
ance with six kittens may have been a 
portent either of good or of evil. As you 
know, I am not a superstitious person. I 
smile at those whimsical fancies which figure 
so conspicuously in many people's lives, 
such as the howling of dogs, the flickering 
of a candle, the arrangement of the grounds 
in a cup, the cracking of a mirror, the sud- 
den stopping of the clock, the crowing of 
hens, the chirping of crickets, the hooting 
of an owl, the fall of a family portrait, the 
spilling of salt, a dream of the toothache, 
etc., etc., etc. If this particular cat had 
been black instead of tabby I should have 
regarded her advent as a prognostic, for it 
is conceded by all scientists that there is a 
mysteriously subtle virtue in a black cat. 



THE HOUSE 

The fact, however, that she was tabby 
dispossessed her of all power either for evil 
or for good, and 1 could not help regarding 
Uncle Si with pity for the seeming venera- 
tion in which he held this harmless and in- 
nocent beast. Still I determined to watch 
and note events with a view to confuting 
the superstition which foresaw good luck 
in the presence of this cat and her offspring. 

While the work of rehabilitating the old 
house was at its height I received a letter 
from my friend Byron Tinkle of Kansas 
City, congratulating me upon having secured 
so lovely a home after so many years of 
patient waiting. " And now," said he, "\ 
am anxious to be represented by some bit 
of furniture in your new place. It has oc- 
curred to me that a handsome library table 
might be acceptable, and it would certainly 
delight me to present you with an object 
which would serve to remind you of your 
old schoolmate, whose affection for you has 
been abated neither by separation nor by 
the lapse of time." 

Mr. Tinkle then went on to say that he 
had hit upon a very appropriate design for 



NEIGHBOR MACLEOD'S THISTLE 

a library table — a design full of historical 
and mythological allusion. Four figures of 
Atlas supporting the world were to serve as 
the legs of this table, and around the sides 
of the top were to be carved scenes illustra- 
tive of the progress of civilization since the 
building of Solomon's temple. Upon -the 
four edges of the top were to be inlaid mo- 
saic portraits of the most famous scientists, 
including ^sculapius, Moses, Galileo, Dar- 
win, Herschel, Mitchell, Huxley, Harvey, 
Jenner, etc., and the top itself was to repre- 
sent a cunningly devised map of the world, 
in which my native town of Biddeford, 
Maine, was to appear as the central and 
most conspicuous figure. 

I felt very grateful to my old friend Tinkle 
for his generosity, but 1 said nothing of it to 
Alice. Recalling the experience with Col- 
onel Mullaly's yellow lamp, I suspected that 
if Alice were to hear of this promised addi- 
tion to our furniture she would surely change 
the whole architectural scheme of our new 
home in order to adapt it to the new centre 
table. 

Mr. Tinkle's princely offer was but the 



THE HOUSE 

beginning of a series of handsome and use- 
ful gifts. It seemed as if our friends no 
sooner heard of our purchase of a home than 
they became possessed of a desire to con- 
tribute toward embellishing that home. 
Another Kansas City friend, Colonel Gustave 
Gerton, late of the Bavarian Guards, tele- 
graphed me that a dozen young apple trees, 
carefully picked from his Nonpareil Nursery, 
awaited my «order. The Janowins, who 
have a prosperous farm in Kentucky, duly 
apprised us that when we were ready to 
stock our place they would send us a heifer 
and a litter of pigs. Cousin Jabez Fother- 
gill forwarded to us all the way from Maine 
a box which was found to contain a pint of 
Hubbard squash seeds, a dozen daffodil 
sprouts, and a goodly collection of catnip 
roots. Offers of dogs came from numerous 
quarters — dogs representing the mastiff, 
bloodhound, Newfoundland, beagle, setter, 
pointer, St. Bernard, terrier, bull. Spitz, 
dachshund, spaniel, colly, pug, and poodle 
families. Had we contemplated a peren- 
nial bench show, instead of a quiet home, 
we could hardly have been more favored. 



NEIGHBOR MACLEOD'S THISTLE 

With a discretion begotten of twenty years' 
experience as a husband, I referred all these 
proffers of canine gifts to Alice with power 
to act, and I dimly surmise that considera- 
tion of them has been postponed indefi- 
nitely. 

As soon as our neighbors realized what 
horticultural possibilities our noble expanse 
of front yard offered they fairly overwhelmed 
us with floral and arboreal gifts. During 
that unusually warm spell we had about two 
months ago there was scarcely an hour of 
the day that a wheelbarrow or a man servant 
or both did not arrive bearing lilac sprouts 
from the Leets, or Japanese ivy slips from 
the Sissons, or peonies from the old Doller 
homestead, or mignonette from Mrs. Roth, 
or dahlias from Mrs. Knox, or marigolds 
from the Baylors, or pansies from the Haynes, 
or tulip bulbs from Mrs. Redd, or something 
or another from somebody else. 

You can depend upon it that all this kept 
me wondroiisly busy. I broke four trowels 
and raised a dozen ugly blisters on my right 
hand in my attempt to get these tender to- 
kens of friendship transplanted before they 

93 



THE HOUSE 

withered. One day Mrs. Baylor and Mrs. 
Rush took me to a neighboring greenhouse 
with them; they wanted to purchase some 
vines to train over their front porches. The 
man at the greenhouse showed me an in- 
numerable assortment of beautiful rose- 
bushes, which I bought in the fond delusion 
that they would vastly embellish our front 
lawn. I recall the pride with which 1 told 
Alice and Adah that 1 guessed I had pur- 
chased enough flowers to fill the whole yard. 
I recall also the sense of humiliation I expe- 
rienced when, after that innumerable assort- 
ment had been set out in the yard, I discov- 
ered that there was not enough of them to 
make an impression even upon the most 
susceptible eye. 

I am not yet quite sure whether neighbor 
Macleod was in earnest or whether he meant 
it in fun when he sent us a magnificent this- 
tle, with the suggestion that we plant it in 
our lawn. But, out of respect to neighbor 
Macleod's patriotism as a loval son of Cale- 
donia, I did plant the thistle in amiable com- 
pliance with my friend's suggestion. Other 
neighbors protested against this, but I im- 
94 



NEIGHBOR MACLHOD'S THISTLE 

puted their objections to that natural feeling 
of jealousy which is too likely to manifest 
itself when the interests of other neighbors 
are involved. The thistle was an uncom- 
monly large and active one, and I suffered 
somewhat from its teeth before I finally got 
it comfortably located in a patch of succulent 
turf under one of our willow-trees. 

The unusually warm spell to which I have 
referred was followed (as you will doubtless 
recollect), by a period of bitterly cold wea- 
ther. With an anguish which I am utterly 
incapable of describing, I saw my marigolds 
and mignonette and roses and peonies and 
dahlias and pansies and other leafy pets 
wither and droop and shrivel. In less than 
forty-eight hours' time they were all appar- 
ently as dead as that side of the moon which 
is invisible to us. The only flower or shrub 
in all that once blooming lawn which re- 
mained unshorn of its beauty by the bitter 
hyperborean blasts was the Macleod thistle. 
Proudly it reared itself amid that desolation, 
and defiantly it exhibited its fangs to foe and 
friend alike. 

I cannot tell you how heartily 1 rejoiced 



THE HOUSE 

that I had not yielded to the importunities 
of the Baylors, the Tiltmans, the Browes, 
and the Denslows when, in an ebullition of 
neighborly jealousy, they sought the destruc- 
tion of that sturdy plant. But my delight 
was of short duration. One morning before I 
arrived to pursue my horticultural avocation 
a remorseless policeman invaded the prem- 
ises and pulled up the bristling emblem of 
Scotia and cast it into the hard highway un- 
der the pretext that by so doing he was com- 
plying with a provision of the revised stat- 
utes. I learned that this policeman is a 
Swede, and 1 can justify his conduct only 
upon the hypothesis of heredity, although it 
is hard to conceive that the malignant feeling 
which existed centuries ago among the 
Norsemen who were wont to harry the Scot- 
tish coast should exhibit itself at this remote 
period in the demeanor of a naturalized Swede 
who presumably does not know the differ- 
ence between a viking and a meteorite. 

If I had been of a sarcastic or of a bitter 

nature, I might have imputed this curious 

train of mishaps to the malign influence of 

that maternal tabby cat which Uncle Si had 

96 



NEIGHBOR MACLEOD'S THISTLE 

hailed as a harbinger of good luck. As it 
was, I could not resist giving play to my de- 
sire for retaliation when Uncle Si confided to 
me one morning that some unscrupulous 
person or persons had invaded the premises 
the night before and had carried off about 
six thousand feet of choice lumber. I was 
disposed to be very wroth at first, but when 
I gathered from Uncle Si's remarks that the 
loss would foil upon him and not upon me 
my anger was assuaged to a degree that 
admitted of my suggesting to Uncle Si that 
perhaps this incident might be reckoned as a 
part of that ''good luck" which the advent 
of the tabby cat and her kits had prognosti- 
cated. 

Having unbosomed myself of this perhaps 
too savage thrust, 1 gave Uncle Si a cigar 
and in my most cordial tones bade him 
"never mind and be of good cheer." 1 
make it a practice never to say or do that 
which is likely to occasion pain or humilia- 
tion without accompanying the word or the 
deed with somewhat that shall serve as an 
antidote thereunto. For I bear ill will to 
none, and it is constantly my endeavor to 

91 



THE HOUSE 

make life pleasant and dear not only to my- 
self but also to my fellow beings. 

My consideration for Uncle Si's feelings 
was almost immediately rewarded, for as 1 
left Uncle Si smoking his cigar in a com- 
forted mood I beheld my neighbor, Colonel 
Bobbett Doller, coming up the driveway and 
beckoning to me. If you know the colonel 
as I do, you know him to be a gentleman of 
wealth, of position, and of influence. More- 
over, Colonel Doller is a man of large sympa- 
thies. He had heard of our recent acquisi- 
tion and had come to congratulate me. We 
shook hands warmly. 

'' You have here," said Colonel Doller, cor- 
dially, "a magnificent property, and I heartily 
rejoice to learn that you acquired it at a 
merely nominal price. Has it occurred to 
you, my dear sir, that this tract, with its 
majestic sweep of lawn and its picturesque 
glory of shade trees, presents tremendous 
possibilities — in fact, secures to you the op- 
portunity of comprehending riches beyond 
the dreams of avarice.^ Let us be seated 
upon this pile of bricks while I unfold to you 
a panorama of potentialities." 
98 



X 

COLONEL DOLLER'S GREAT IDEA 

COLONEL BOBBETT DOLLER and I sat 
down, side by side, on the pile of bricks, 
and the colonel proceeded straightway to 
disclose pleasing visions to my mind's eye. 

" You are doubtless aware," said the col- 
onel, ''that you are not, in the severest ac- 
ceptation of the term, a business man?" 

''Alas," said I, "1 am compelled in all 
candor to admit that lamentable fact." 

"Then," continued the colonel, "you 
probably do not know that this noble ex- 
panse of high ground upon which your 
stately residence is reared is the exact centre 
of a radius of eighty miles. In other words, 
did the power of your vision extend eighty 
miles you would be able to see for yourself 
from the roof of your superb house that this 



THE HOUSE 

point is in fact the centre of a radius repre- 
senting a stretch in any and every direction 
of eighty miles." 

*'No, I had never supposed it possible," 
said I. 

"It is, nevertheless, a demonstrable fact," 
said Colonel Doller. "It is more notorious, 
however, that this property of yours (desig- 
nated in the records as the south half of lot 
i6, Terhune's addition, section 9, township 
of Pond View) " 

" Page 273, volunTe 105," said I, interrupt- 
ing him; for I suddenly recalled the super- 
scription on the warranty deed. 

" Exactly," said Colonel Doller, with a ge- 
nial smile. ' ' Now, as I was about to remark, 
it is notorious that this property of yours is 
situate in the very heart of the delectable 
tract known to the world as the North Shore. 
I do not exaggerate when I say, in the 
language of my popular brochure entitled, 
'Homes for the Homeless,' that the North 
Shore offers inducements, both for the living 
and for the dead, which are not met with in 
any other part of our growing community. 
Recognizing the merit of these inducements, 



COLONEL DOLLER'S GREAT IDEA 

immigration has turned its tide toward the 
North Shore. Ten years ago there was 
naught but desolation where now the dan- 
delion blooms and the voice of the tree-toad 
is heard in song. What do we see about us 
to-day ? To the north of us the roof of Mar- 
tin Howard's new barn glistens under the 
smiling noonday sun. Turning our gaze 
westward we behold the turrets of the pala- 
tial residence which neighbor Bales has 
erected in Razzle Street. Yonder in the 
southeast horizon we detect the tall, lithe 
flagpole which Major Ryson has set up as a 
graceful tribute to the memory of the late 
lamented yacht club. Cast your eyes where 
you will and you will see convincing evi- 
dences of the onward, irresistible march of 
civilization. 

'' This noble property ofyours," continued 
Colonel Doller, "is the very heart of all this 
pulsing, throbbing, bustling, teeming civili- 
zation. Why, my dear Baker, I would not 
exchange (if I were you) the opportunities 
now within your grasp for any other con- 
ceivable thing — not even though millions 
were placed in the opposing scale! " 



THE HOUSE 

' ' I don't believe I understand you, " said I. 

" I will be more explicit, "said Colonel Dol- 
ler, " The tide of immigration has already 
overwhelmed this section; a great commer- 
cial wave is closely following it. Trade will 
soon locate its emporiums in the midst of us. 
Already two blocks to the south of this 
property a commercial mart has begun to 
invite the attention and the patronage of 
our public." 

"You refer to Pusheck's grocery store?" 

**The same," said Colonel Doller. " Pres- 
ently a barber-shop and a banana stand will 
follow; then a bicycle repair-shop will 
spring up in our midst, and from that mo- 
ment our status as a commercial centre will 
be assured." 

As I was in no sense a business man 1 
could not deny this. To be frank with you, 
it all looked very plausible to me. 

" Thereis nothing else, " continued Colonel 
Doller, '* more practicable or of greater value 
than foreseeing events and being prepared for 
them. Now, here you are in the very midst 
of this flood of immigration, and with the 
tidal wave of commerce at your very door. 

102 



COLONEL HOLLER'S GREAT IDEA 

Is your property in a position to avail you 
handsomely in case you accede to the de- 
mands of reason and conclude to yield to the 
persuasions of immigration and commerce ? 
The consideration which should be para- 
mount with you is this: 'Having secured 
this property, how can I get rid of it to the 
best advantage?' " 

" But it is n't for sale,"' said I. 

"True, quite true, "answered Colonel Dol- 
ler, with a weary, patient smile, ''but it will 
be. What is North Shore property for if not 
for sale ? You certainly do not intend to vio- 
late all the customs and traditions of the com- 
munity by holding out against an opportu- 
nity to benefit yourself? That, my dear 
Baker, would be folly." 

"But nobody has asked us to sell," said 
I, apologetically. 

"That is because your property is not in 
desirable shape," said the colonel. "If it 
were, you would have chances to enrich 
yourself in less than a month. You see your 
lot fronts one hundred- feet on Clarendon 
Avenue, and runs back two hundred and 
thirty-nine feet to a prospective alley; this 
103 



THE HOUSE 

gives you one hundred feet of salable prop- 
erty, but with a depth that actually involves 
a wicked waste of land. Now suppose you 
were to buy the twenty-five feet that lies to 
the south on Clarendon Avenue just between 
your lot and Sandpile Terrace. That would 
give you a frontage of two hundred and 
thirty-nine feet on the terrace, with a depth 
altogether of one hundred and twenty-five 
feet! Do you follow me ? " 

''Yes, 1 see," said I, as this good and 
shrewd man's meaning gradually stole upon 
me. 

''With that additional twenty-five feet," 
resumed Colonel Doller, "you could divide 
up the whole property into what you might 
call (if you chose) Baker's Subdivision: then 
you could parcel it off into twenty-foot lots 
with frontage on Sandpile Terrace — and 
there you are, a rich man almost before you 
know it." 

"Gracious me! That is a great idea!" 
said 1, and I whistled softly to myself. 

"Great? Well, I should say so!" ex- 
claimed Colonel Doller. " I knew it would 
appeal to you, for you are a man of intelli- 
104 



COLONEL DOLLER'S GREAT IDEA 

gence and capable of foreseeing and appre- 
ciating potentialities." 

"Who owns that strip?" I asked, refer- 
ring to the twenty-five feet adjoining our lot 
to the south. 

''Well, it happens to be mine," said Col- 
onel Doller. ''As soon as I heard that you 
had purchased this place it occurred to me 
that you ought to have that twenty-five feet 
in order to make the rest of your property 
available. So, without saying a word about 
it to anybody else, 1 "ve stepped over here to 
tell you that if you want it I 'II throw that 
strip in to you at one hundred and twenty- 
five dollars per front foot." 

"We gave only one hundred dollars a 
foot for this lot," said I. 

"Very true," said Colonel Doller, "but 
my lot admits of giving you a frontage of 
two hundred and thirty-nine feet on Sand- 
pile Terrace." 

"To be sure it does," said I. "For the 
moment 1 quite lost sight of that. W^ell, 1 
think very favorably of it, and I suspect Mr. 
Black would insist upon my closing with 
you at once. I '11 speak to Alice about it." 
105 



THE HOUSE 

'* Be careful not to breathe a word of it to 
anybody else," suggested Colonel Doller in a 
low, mysterious tone, ''and whatever else 
you do, don't let my partner, Leet, have 
even so much as an inkling of the fact that 
we 've had a talk! You understand ? " 

" It shall be kept a profound secret! " said 
I, with solemn earnestness. 

Colonel Doller patted me reassuringly on 
the shoulder as he arose to depart. 

"Baker," said he, kindly, "you are as 
good as a rich man already! You get that 
extra twenty-five feet and make a subdivision 
of this property, and you '11 have so much 
money you won't know what to do with it! 
Why, thenextthing we '11 hear of you, you'll 
be living in a castle on a hill, with an obser- 
vatory — just think of it. Baker, old man! an 
observatory and a twelve-foot telescope 
capable of discovering a new comet every 
night, rain or shine! " 

The kind gentleman's enthusiasm quite 
took my breath away. As I watched him 
departing down the shady drive my heart 
overflowed with gratitude, and again I 
thanked the providential Power that had 
106 



COLONEL HOLLER'S GREAT IDEA 

given me so many kind, solicitous, and self- 
sacrificing friends. 

My conversation with Colonel Doller set 
me to indulging in thoughts which were 
entirely new to me, and which pleased me 
with their novelty and brilliancy. I fancied 
myself already possessed of a wealth which 
permitted me to pursue unreservedly those 
studies and investigations which have been 
my delight since youth. In imagination I 
pictured myself the owner of a sightly resi- 
dence surmounted by a spacious observa- 
tory, in which was located a magnificent 
reflector-telescope operated by the newest 
and nicest mechanism. It was pleasing to 
be rich, even in fancy. My thoughts re- 
verted to the children. 

"Dear pampered darlings," I murmured, 
"they little know the lives of independence 
and of ease that are before them. They 
will never know what it is to toil and to 
economize. And Alice — sweet girl — this 
will put an end to her worry about grocery 
bills!" 

It is curious how completely I lost interest 
in our new house as soon as, the prospect 
107 



THE HOUSE 

of getting rich dawned upon me. You will 
not believe it, but after that talk with Colonel 
Doller I looked with actual disdain upon the 
old Schmittheimer home and its broad, vel- 
vety lawn under the noble trees. I was so 
possessed with the fascinating scheme sug- 
gested by Colonel Doller that I was even 
tempted to bid Uncle Si and his men quit 
work until I had consulted with Alice as to 
the feasibility of abandoning the proposed 
improvements and investing the rest of Mr. 
Black's three thousand dollars in the twenty- 
five-foot strip to the south of us. I am glad 
now that the still small voice within me pre- 
vailed, and that I saw Alice before saying 
anything to Uncle Si. 

"Reuben Baker," exclaimed Alice, ''that 
property is mine and I bought it for a home, 
not to sell. If you and Colonel Doller want 
to speculate, you need n't think you 're go- 
ing to rope me into any of your schemes." 

''But, Alice, darling — " 

" I sha' n't listen to a word of such non- 
sense," persisted Alice. "So, there." 

I was inclined to remonstrate, but just at 
that moment the front door bell rang and a 
108 



COLONEL DOLLER'S GREAT IDEA 

telegraphic message was handed in. The 
message was from Cincinnati and it read in 
this wise: 

"Shall be there to-morrow morning to 
look things over. Luther M. Black. 

In the prospect of a visit from our patron, 
Mr. Black, 1 speedily forgot all about Colonel 
Bobbett Doller and his pleasing panorama 
of potentialities. In this we see illustrated 
the wisdom of Providence in so dispensing 
human events as to soothe the wounds of 
disappointment with the balm of anticipa- 
tion. 



XI 

I MAKE A STAND FOR MY RIGHTS 

SHORTLY after Mr. Black's arrival that 
worthy gentleman was escorted with all 
due formality to the old Schmittheimer place 
in Clarendon Avenue. Recognizing the fact 
that first impressions are lasting, we deter- 
mined that Mr. Black's first impressions of 
our purchase should be favorable. So we 
conducted him to our property by a rather 
circuitous route. The approach to the old 
Schmittheimer place from the north is by all 
means the most agreeable; it leads by Mr. 
Rink's fine colonial house and Martin How- 
ard's new place and through an embowered 
avenue of weeping willows, which, out of 
deference to his melancholy profession, Mr. 
Dimmons, landscape gardener of our most 
prosperous cemetery, has constructed in 
front of his beautiful residence in Thistle 



1 MAKE A STAND FOR MY RIGHTS 

Patch Court; a turn is then made upon Dan- 
delion Place, and just one block this side of 
Mr. Allworth's bowlder house (famous as 
the greatest bargain ever acquired on the 
North Shore) another turn to the right brings 
you in sight and within a few yards of our 
property. 

Mr. Black was pleased with the neighbor- 
hood. He is not a man of enthusiasms; in 
all the years of my acquaintance with him I 
have never known him to give Vv^ay to an 
ebullition of any kind. Yet upon this occa- 
sion there was an expression upon his face 
when he first set eyes upon our property 
which gave me to understand that he ap- 
proved of our purchase. 1 hastened to 
clinch this flivorable impression by apprising 
him briefly of the proposition Colonel Bob- 
bett Doller had made to me the previous af- 
ternoon, and I flatter myself that, between 
us, Alice and I made a pretty fair presenta- 
tion of the merits of our new place. 

''You seem to have begun reconstructing 
the house," said Mr. Black. " Who is your 
architect ?" 

"We have no real architect," said I. "In 



THE HOUSE 

order to save expense we have employed a 
boss carpenter capable not only of designing 
plans, but also of executing them. His 
name is Silas Plum." 

" Plum ? That is a very familiar name to 
me," said Mr. Black. "I wonder whether 
he is any kin to the Plum family of Maine. 
There was an Elnathan Plum, who used to 
live in Aroostook, and I went to school with 
him at Pocatapaug Academy in the winter 
of 1827. The last time I visited Maine I was 
told that he had moved west in 1840, or 
thereabouts. He married a third cousin of 
mine whose maiden name was Eastman — 
Euphemia Eastman, as I recall it." 

Of course I was unable to say what Uncle 
Si's antecedents were, but I felt pretty cer- 
tain that, if left to himself, Mr. Black would 
find out all about them, for of all the people 
I ever met with Mr. Black surely has the 
most astounding faculty for acquiring and 
remembering genealogical data. 

Our worthy friend consumed fully a half- 
hour's time inspecting our front lawn, ex- 
amining into the condition of the fence, 
learning what kind of trees we had, and as- 



1 MAKE A STAND FOR MY RIGHTS 

certaining the character and depth of the soil. 
I do not hesitate to afhrm that he knew more 
about these things at the end of that half- 
hour than I shall know at the end of ten 
years' daily association with them. 1 took 
pains, however, to make the most of what 
small knowledge I had, and with considerable 
flourish I called Mr. Black's attention to our 
lilac and gooseberry bushes, and with con- 
scious pride pointed out the wild grape vine 
in the corner of the yard. I told Mr. Black 
that it was our intention to have a kitchen 
garden back of the house, and that among 
other things we should cultivate onions of 
the choicest quality. 1 had an object in 
specifying the onions particularly, for I knew 
that Mr. Black had a fondness (amounting 
almost to a passion) for this succulent fruit. 
In all that I pointed out and in all that I 
said Mr. Black appeared to take more than 
common interest. One thing that seemed 
to please him particularly was the discovery 
that three of our currant bushes had escaped 
the malice of the workmen, and he promised 
Alice to write to his niece at Biddeford for 
her recipe for making currant wine, a beve- 

»i3 



THE HOUSE 

rage which, he assured us, would cheer but 
not inebriate. 

Alice and 1 had made it up beforehand that 
we would leave Mr. Black and Uncle Si to- 
gether for a spell after we had introduced 
them to each other; for we wanted our pa- 
tron to learn for himself (unembarrassed by 
our presence) just what had been done and 
how it had been done. ' I take it for granted 
that the two enjoyed their three hours' con- 
fabulation, but 1 more than half suspect they 
spent precious little of that time in a discus- 
sion of our affairs. Mr. Black told me after- 
terward that he had ascertained that Uncle 
Si (or Silas, as he called him) was, as he 
had surmised, a son of EInathan Plum of 
Aroostook. 

"Silas looks more like his mother's side 
of the family," said Mr. Black. " The East- 
mans, as I remember them, were tall and 
spare, with blue eyes and straight noses. 
We have an Eastman in Cincinnati who 
looks enough like Silas to be his brother, al- 
though he belongs to the Ebenezer Eastman 
branch of the family, who located in West- 
boro, Mass., in 1763. Tooker Eastman, the 
114 



I MAKE A STAND FOR MY RIGHTS 

Cincinnati representative of the family, is 
pastor of the First Church ; he married Sukey, 
the widow of Amos Sears, who (that is to 
say, Amos) was a son of Calvin Sears, who 
was postmaster at Biddeford while I was a 
young man in that town." 

From this and other similar morsels of in- 
formation which Mr. Black let fall in my 
hearing I gathered that Mr. Black's talk with 
Uncle Si had been rather of a historical and 
reminiscent than of a business character. 
But this mattered not to me; it was clear 
that Mr. Black approved of our purchase 
and of the improvements we contemplated, 
and that was enough to insure our entire 
satisfaction. 

When I came down from my study that 
evening I found Mr. Black and Alice sitting 
in the parlor, looking mysteriously solemn. 

" I have been advising your wife to make 
a will, "said Mr. Black. 

''Why, Alice dear, are you ill ? " I asked, 
in genuine alarm. 

Alice laughingly answered that she had 
never before felt heartier or in finer spirits. 

"Then why make a will?" 1 asked. 

"5 



THE HOUSE 

''Who ever heard of a person's making a 
will unless he was sick ? " 

"You are laboring under a delusion too 
common to humanity," said Mr. Black. " in 
the midst of life we are in death. It is 
during health and while we are in full pos- 
session of our physical and mental faculties 
that we should provide against that penalty 
which we all alike as debtors are sooner or 
later to pay to nature. Your wife has re- 
cently become possessed by purchase of 
property that may eventually be of large 
value. It seems proper that she should draw 
a will indicating her desires as lo the disposal 
of this property in the event of her demise." 

" But what," I cried with honest feeling, 
" what would be lands or gold without my 
Alice.?" 

"Calm your agitation, Reuben dear," said 
Alice. "The suggestion which Mr. Black 
has made does not involve you to the extent 
of making you an heir." 

"No," said Mr. Black, "it is proper that 
you should have a life estate in the property, 
but the property itself should ultimately go 
to the children." 

ii6 



I MAKE A STAND FOR MY RIGHTS 

"Still," said Alice, thoughtfully, " if Reu- 
ben were to survive me it would be just like 
him to marry again, and I believe I should 
just rise up in my grave if I thought another 
woman was living on the premises which I 
myself had earned." 

''Oh, but Alice, that is very unfair!" I 
expostulated. '' It is / who am earning the 
money — or, at least, it is I who expect to 
earn the money wherewith to repay our dear 
friend, Mr. Black, the sums he has advanced 
and may advance for our property!" 

''There! I suspected it all the time," cried 
Alice, indignantly. ' ' You are already claim- 
ing the property— you are already prepar- 
ing for my death — I daresay you have your 
eyes already on the woman who is to step 
into my place when I am gone ! But I won't 
die — no, I just won't! But I'll make a will 
and I '11 give everything to the children, and 
you sha' n't have a thing when I do die — 
not a thing, not even a life estate — so 
there! " 

Mr. Black and I were trying to soothe the 
dear creature, when there came a knock at 
the front door. Alice popped up and made 
117 



THE HOUSE 

her escape into the dining-room. The front 
door opened and the ruddy, smiling face of 
neighbor Denslow appeared. 

''Pardon my informality," said Mr. Dens- 
low, cheerily; ''can I come in ?" 

"By all means," I cried. ''You are in 
good season to meet my old and valued 
friend, Mr. Black." 

Mr. Denslow greeted Mr. Black effusively. 
All my neighbors had heard me speak of 
my generous patron, and they all took a 
really noble neighborly pride in promoting 
my interests with him. Mr. Denslow began 
at once to dilate in eloquent terms upon the 
bargain Alice and I had secured in the old 
Schmittheimer place. 

"And, by the way," said Mr. Denslow, 
turning to me, "the mention of your bar- 
gain reminds me of the object of my call. 
August Schmittheimer, a son of the widow, 
came to my office to-day to tell me that he 
is prepared to let you have the thirty-three 
feet in the rear of your lot at a merely nomi- 
nal price — say two hundred dollars. 

I had cast envious eyes upon this particu- 
lar strip of ground several times. Alice had 
ii8 



I MAKE A STAND FOR MY RIGHTS 

remarked that it would afford an ideal spot 
upon which to hang out the washing on 
Monday mornings; at other times it would 
serve as a convenient playground for Jose- 
phine and little Erasmus. It really seemed 
like a special Providence that what we had 
been wishing for should unexpectedly be 
thrust within our very grasp. 

"I think that we should have that extra 
strip by all means," said I ; and then I added, 
by way of demonstrating the wisdom of my 
opinion to Mr. Black: *'We shall thus be 
enabled to enlarge our onion bed to preten- 
tious proportions." 

This argument must have convinced Mr. 
Black, for he remarked at once that he recog- 
nized the wisdom of acquiring the extra 
piece of land at the bargain price suggested. 

" If it pleases you, then," said Mr. Dens- 
low, ''I will attend the first thing in the 
morning to having the investigation into the 
title begun, and I suppose that within the 
next three days the deal can be consum- 
mated and the property duly transferred to 
Mrs. Baker." 

Too often I do not think of the bright and 
119 



THE HOUSE 

felicitous thing to say or do until it is too 
late. On this occasion, however, a really 
shrewd and happy thought occurred to me. 
The somewhat malicious purpose it contem- 
plated was justified, I claim, by the context 
(so to speak) of events. 

''Neighbor Denslow," said I, confiden- 
tially, "when it comes to the transfer of 
that property please be so kind as to have 
the warranty deed made to me." 

Mr. Denslow looked so surprised, and so 
did Mr. Black, that I deemed an explanation 
necessary. 



1 20 



XII 
I AM DECEIVED IN MR. WAX 

1WENT on to say that it seemed to me to 
be unwise to invest too much power in 
Alice's hands; that /had certain rights which 
should be protected, and that if I was not to 
be assured a life estate in Alice's property I 
ought to have at least thirty-three feet to 
which I could, in an emergency, retire to 
spend the evening of my existence in peace 
and security. 

'' Possessed of that thirty-three feet," said 
I, ''I make no question that I shall soon be 
able to bring Alice to terms. Give me the 
power to stand on my own patch of ground 
and defy Alice every Monday morning when 
the weekly wash is ready to be hung out, 
and I will cheerfully risk the future." 

Mr. Denslow and Mr. Black are sensible 
and loyal men ; they recognized the propriety 



THE HOUSE 

of standing by me in tliis emergency, and it 
was agreed that the extra piece of ground 
should be conveyed to me. 

That night 1 dreamed that AHce had been 
called to her heavenly reward and that I had 
been turned out of doors by our heartless 
children. I was an aged and tottering man. 
The wind blew lustily and a storm was rag- 
ing. I drew my threadbare coat closer about 
me, for I was shivering with the cold. 

"Alas," I cried (in my dream), "whither 
shall I turn ? Is there no spot on earth where 
I can die in peace ?" 

Then, O joy! it occurred to me (in my 
dream) that I owned the thirty-three feet 
back of the dear old home. Two years' 
taxes were due on it, but it was still mine — 
all mine! 

"The snow is deep and clean and hospi- 
table there," I cried (still in my dream), " and 
it is all mine own ! To that snowbank will 
I make my way, and there will I lie down 
to sleep my last sleep." 

But just then I awoke to discover that it 
was only a dream. Had I been of a super- 
stitious nature I might have read in this 



I AM DECEIVED IN MR. WAX 

dream divers premonitions and strange sig- 
nificances. As it was, it merely confirmed 
me in my belief that 1 had done wisely in se- 
curing that thirty-three-foot strip. 

Mr. Black went back home next day, and 
nothing more was said for the nonce about 
a " will" or a ''life estate," or any matter 
thereunto appertaining, and disagreeable to 
Alice and to me alike. The cold weather 
having melted away into sunshine and 
warmth, I once more began to be deeply in- 
terested in horticulture and floriculture, 
and this, too, in spite of the ineffaceable 
scars which the spade-wielding vandals had 
left in the large front yard in the alleged in- 
terest of the sewer, water, and gas-pipes. 

This enthusiasm of mine in behalf of mat- 
ters of which I knew absolutely nothing was 
retired by my respected neighbor. Fad da 
Pierce, who is so learned in all affairs involv- 
ing flowers and shrubbery that I actually be- 
lieve that what he does n"t know about them 
is n't worth knowing. Fadda's cottage is 
covered with every variety of dainty and 
luxurious vine, and in his yard bloom all 
kinds of rare and beautiful flowers. He is 
123 



THE HOUSE 

SO famed for his fondness for and luck with 
flowers that I felt grateful to the dear old 
gentleman when he visited me with a view 
to advising me as to the kind of flowers I 
ought to plant in my lawn and around the 
house. 

It was then that 1 learned of the existence 
of shrubs, vines, and flowers of which I had 
never before heard, it is indeed amazing 
that an ordinarily intelligent man can reach 
the age of forty-five years without being able 
to profess truthfully a more or less intimate 
acquaintance with hydrangeas, fuchsias, 
taraxacums, syringas, sisymbriums, gilli- 
flowers, kentaphyllons, maydenheer, chrys- 
anthemums, orchids, geraniums, lichens, 
laburnums, jasmines, heliotropes, gentians, 
eucalyptuses, crocuses, carnations, dahlias, 
cactuses, billybuttons, anemones, anthropo- 
morphous, amaranths, etc. etc. Fadda 
Pierce did not chide me for my heathenish 
ignorance; he seemed to take it for granted 
that 1 had been too busy acquiring know- 
ledge in other lines to have time to devote 
to research in botany. He was much more 
considerate than neighbor Roth was when 
124 



I AM DECEIVED IN MR. WAX 

he pulled up his team in front of my house 
one day and asked me how far it was to 
Glencoe. I answered that I did not know ; 
whereupon he shrugged his shoulders and 
muttered: ''I thought as much, by gosh! 
You can tell how fur 't is to the sun, the 
moon, an' the stars, but you can't tell how 
fur 't is to Glencoe! " 

Fadda Pierce advised me to set out about 
two dozen cobies (I think he called them) 
around our new colonial front porch, and 
then he kindly designated certain spots in 
the yard where beds ought to be constructed 
for certain flowers, the names of which he 
wrote down on a slip of paper. Some of 
these beds were to be circular, some square, 
and some oblong. Fadda told me that I 
would require at least three loads of black 
dirt, and he gave me the address of a person 
who dealt in this precious commodity at 
one dollar and a half a load. I called upon 
this person at once and ordered the three 
loads of black dirt to be delivered immedi- 
ately. I then bethought myself that I required 
an outfit of garden tools; so 1 made my way 
to the nearest hardware shop and purchased 
125 



THE HOUSE 

a spade, a hoe, a rake, a wheelbarrow, a wa- 
tering can, a trowel, and a pruning-knife. 
1 trundled the barrow home, with the other 
purchases in it. 

The day was exceedingly warm, and my 
appearance in this new role excited the de- 
rision ofmy neighbors; but I felt rather flat- 
tered to be called Farmer Baker, and I was 
glad to give the Baylors, the Edwardses, the 
Dollers, the Tiltmans, the Rushes, the Sis- 
sons, and the rest to understand that I by 
no means disdained to condescend to the 
humble plane of an agriculturist. Now that 
I come to think of it, I remember to have 
read somewhere that Galileo took his recre- 
ation at hoeing and grubbing in the vineyard 
adjoining his observatory. 

As I trundled the barrow up the winding 
road of the Schmittheimer place I became 
aware that a man was following me. So 1 
stopped and waited for him to overtake me. 
His appearance indicated poverty and all its 
attendant miseries. 

''Good sir," said the stranger, "pardon 
me for this intrusion, but misfortunes of a 
most grievous character compel me to thrust 



I AM DECEIVED IN MR. WAX 

myself upon your mercy. You behold in 
me, sir, one of the most hapless of creatures, 
one whom adversity has buffeted with cruel 
pertinacity, and linally driven out to become 
a homeless and friendless wanderer upon the 
face of the earth. My name, sir, is Percival 
Wax, born and reared under the auspices 
of riches, but now forced by the reverses of 
remorseless fate to importune you for the 
wherewithal to procure food and lodging." 

" Mr. Wax," said 1, "your appearance by 
no means belies your words. Your raiment 
is torn and soiled ; your shoes are not mates, 
and your hat was evidently made for a larger 
head than yours. I also read in your dim 
eyes, your unkempt beard, and your di- 
shevelled hair corroboration of your claims to 
intimacy with adversity. While I sympa- 
thize with you in your misfortune, I cannot 
break one of the imperative rules which 
govern the conduct of rny life; if you are 
willing to work 1 will gladly provide you 
with the means of relief from your embar- 
rassment." 

"Work.? Ah, kind sir," said Mr. Wax, 
eagerly, "it is that which 1 have vainly 



THE HOUSE 

sought for weeks. 1 have been out of em- 
ployment ever since the combined efforts 
of our National Administration and of our in- 
competent Congress succeeded in sowingthe 
seeds of distrust in every mind, thereby stag- 
nating business and precipitating a financial 
crisis, from the debris of which 1 can never 
hope to arise." 

" Can you make flower-beds, Mr. Wax ? " 
I asked. 

"Kind gentleman," he answered, ''my 
profession before financial ruin overwhelmed 
me was that of a landscape gardener." 

This was, indeed, a marvellously pleasing 
coincidence. Here was the very man 1 
needed. 

"Take up the barrow, Mr. Wax, and fol- 
low me," said 1. 

I showed him where I wanted the flower- 
beds made — the circular, the square, and 
the oblong. He was first to remove the 
turf and then fill in and square up the beds 
with black dirt. I found him quick to un- 
derstand, and he seemed to be anxious to 
get to work. 

''You can begin as soon as you please," 



1 AM DECEIVED IN MR. WAX 

said I. " Meanwhile I shall go to luncheon, 
and on my return I shall bring you three or 
four mustard sandwiches and some hard- 
boiled eggs to stay you until you have fin- 
ished your task." 

"Thank you, kind sir," said Mr. Wax 
with tears of gratitude in his voice. 

I was gone an hour or more. At lunch- 
eon I told Alice of what I had done, but she 
did not seem to share my enthusiasm at 
having provided Mr. Wax with an oppor- 
tunity to turn an honest penny or two. She 
very clearly indicated to me her distrust of 
all tramps, to which class she was sure Mr. 
Wax belonged. Thereupon 1 warned Alice 
against the inhumanity and wickedness of 
insensibility to the sufferings of others, and 
I was glad that the children were at the 
table with us to hear my remarks in praise 
of that charity which has compassion for all 
conditions of misery. 

Upon my. return to the Schmittheimer 
place I was disappointed to find that no pro- 
gress had been made with the flower-beds. 

*M wonder where Mr. Wax is?" said I 
to Uncle Si. 

I2C) 



THE HOUSE 

" Do you mean that tramp that was 

here about noon ? " asked Uncle Si. 

'' He may have been a tramp," said I, pur- 
posely ignoring Uncle Si's profane epithet 
(for I do not approve of protanity). 

" He went away shortly after you went," 
said Uncle Si. *' I asked him where he was 
going with the wheelbarrow and the garden 
tools, and he said you had hired him to take 
them over to your house in Heavenward 
Avenue for you." 

''Mr. Wax lied to you," said I. *'He 
has stolen that barrow and those tools." 

Uncle Si consoled me by telling me that 
in all human probability Mr. Wax had sold 
his stealings by this time and was already 
squandering his ill-gotten gains in a bar- 
room. 1 lamented not only the ingratitude 
and dishonesty of this man whom I had 
sought to befriend, but also the loss of my 
barrow and my garden tools. There was, 
however, some consolation in the thought 
that my experience would serve me to good 
purpose in the future. 

The three mustard sandwiches and the 
two hard-boiled eggs which 1 had brought 
130 



I AM DECEIVED IN MR. WAX 

from home for Mr. Wax's luncheon I now 
took down into the cellar and fed to Alice, 
the mother cat. Had I been a superstitious 
person I should not have performed this kind 
deed by one whom many might have re- 
garded as the prognostic (if not actually the 
cause) of the many evils which had befallen 
me of late. As it was, I took a kind of 
spiteful satisfaction in observing that the 
gaunt beast did not exhibit that exuberant 
fondness for mustard sandwiches and hard- 
boiled eggs which might be confidently 
looked for in the mother of six healthy and 
always hungry kittens. 



131 



XIII 
EDITOR WOODSIT A TRUE FRIEND 

ONE morning — it was a Thursday morn- 
ing, as I distinctly recall — I was much 
surprised to find that work upon the house 
had practically been suspended. I was sure 
there could not have been a strike, for 1 told 
the workmen at the beginning that when- 
ever they felt as if they were not getting 
enough pay they must come to me about it' 
and I would raise their wages. They had 
already been to me three times and received 
an increase of pay each time. So 1 felt mod- 
erately secure against a strike. Uncle Si ex- 
plained the situation briefly. 

"The plasterers were to have begun to- 
day," said he, "but there is no water for 
them; so I had to send them away." 

"No water .^ " I cried. " No water ? Then 
132 



EDITOR WOODSIT A TRUE FRIEND 

tell me, I pray, why this noble front yard of 
ours has been converted into a dreary waste 
by those vandals with their spades and 
picks ? Why is that deep, wide, ragged 
ditch still yawning in our faces and threaten- 
ing the death of every tree at whose roots it 
crawls ? And why did I pay Sibley the plum- 
ber forty-five dollars last Saturday night, if it 
were not for the laying of water pipe in that 
hideous ditch ? No water, indeed! " 

"It is nobody's fault but the city's," ex- 
plained Uncle Si. ''The pipe is all laid and 
nothing remains but for the city to make the 
connection with the main in the street. You 
see zve can't tap the main ; that is for the city 
to do." 

''Then why does n't the city do it.^" I 
asked. 

Uncle Si shrugged his shoulders. 

"The city ought to do a good many things 
it docs n't do," said he. "They promised 
to have that main tapped at eight o'clock 
last Monday morning, and here it is ten 
o'clock Thursday morning and not a drop 
of water on the place! There is n't any use 
kicking, for those politicians down at the City 
J 33 



THE HOUSE 

Hall do things their own way and take their 
own time doing 'em! " 

I saw that argument with Uncle Si meant 
simply a waste of time, so I determined to 
go down-town to the City Hall myself to see 
whether no eloquence or indignation of my 
own would move the derelict officers to a 
performance of their- duty. On the train I 
fell in with Mr. Leet, who was on his way 
to his place of business. He had not seen 
me since our purchase of the Schmittheimer 
property, and he took this first occasion to 
congratulate me upon what he called one of 
those bargains which occur at rare intervals 
in a century. Finding me in a felicitous 
mood, Mr. Leet went on to say that the 
property we already possessed would be en- 
hanced in value an hundred-fold and would be 
rendered marketable instantaneously by the 
further acquisition of the twenty-five feet 
adjoining it upon the north. 

''Yes," said I, "Mr. Doller spoke to me 
about that twenty-five-foot strip some time 
ago." 

" Aha, so Doller has been approaching 
you, has he ? " said Mr. Leet, softly. "Well, 

134 



EDITOR WOODSIT A TRUE FRIEND 

Doller is very cunning— very cunning, in- 
deed. But he has nothing to do with the 
north strip. He owns the twenty-five feet 
to the south of your property, the piece front- 
ing on Sandpile Terrace, and a very malari- 
ous location it is, too. I pledge you my 
word, Mr. Baker, I have seen mosquitos 
hovering over that Doller strip at night as 
big as bats!" 

I could neither deny nor affirm the truth 
of this assertion. 

'* My twenty-five-foot strip to the north," 
continued Mr. Leet, 'Ms high and dry and 
sightly. The view it commands of the Water 
Works is indescribably fine. You are surely 
practical enough to see, Mr. Baker, that by 
purchasing that strip and throwing it in 
with yours you will have a subdivision front- 
ing upon Dandelion Place which would offer 
unparalleled inducements to the seeker after 
suburban property. What is more," added 
Mr. Leet in a confidential whisper, 'Mt would 
not surprise me a bit if there were coal de- 
posits in the twenty-five-foot strip of mine. 
I have very distinct suspicions, but the para- 
mount importance of my other business in- 

'35 



THE HOUSE 

terests has prevented me from making the 
investigation which might enrich me beyond 
all calculation. Now, you have time, and if 
you feel disposed to take that property 1 '11 
let you have it at the merely nominal price 
of one hundred and twenty-five dollars a 
front foot." 

This seemed reasonable enough, particu- 
larly when I considered the chances of there 
being a coal mine on the property. How- 
ever, as I had told Mr. Doller, so I now told 
Mr. Leet: I would first have to speak to Alice 
about the matter. Then 1 confided to Mr. 
Leet the object of my mission down-town. 
Presumably in the hope of insuring and 
clinching my devotion to his interests as re- 
presented in his twenty-five-foot lot, Mr. 
Leet manifested solicitude in my behalf and 
inveighed bitterly against the shiftlessness of 
the municipal administration as illustrated in 
the neglect to tap the water main for the 
benefit of my property. 

*'The most aggravatingly exasperating 

part of it all," says I, 'Ms that I am a Repub- 

'lican and have been one for thirty years. 

Moreover, I am a reformer, having helped 

136 



EDITOR WOODSIT A TRUE FRIEND 

to organize the Civic Federation and having 
served for somewhat more than a year as 
chairman of the Special Committee on Ash 
Barrels and Garbage Boxes in the third pre- 
cinct of the Twenty-fifth Ward. 1 made 
several addresses during the last campaign 
in advocacy of civil-service reform and all 
those other reforms which are invariably ad- 
vocated and promised by the party which is 
not in power but wants to be. In the thirty 
years that 1 have been a Republican I have 
never asked a favor of my party, and it does 
seem just a bit ungrateful that the Republi- 
can reform municipal administration which I 
helped to elect should seize with apparent 
avidity upon its first opportunity to snub me 
by refusing to tap the public water main in 
front of my property." 

"You should see Mayor Speedy about 
it," suggested Mr. Leet. 

" I thought of doing so," said I, " but as 
I had already determined to approach him 
with reference to changing the name of 
Mush Street to Clarendon Avenue, I conclud- 
ed that I ought not to call upon him with this 
complaint about the water. I particularly 

•37 



THE HOUSE 

wish to avoid all appearance of hampering 
the administration with importunities and 
complaints of a personal nature." 

''A man of your reputation," said Mr. 
Leet, "should certainly have the strongest 
kind of a pull at the City Hall." 

" You may not believe it," said I, '' but 1 
do not know a man in the City Hall. I visit 
the place but twice a year, and my dealings 
on those occasions are restricted to a haugh- 
ty young foreigner, who graciously permits 
me to pay him the amount of my water tax 
and then waves me to another foreigner 
who in turn waves me to the door. No, I 
have no influence at the City Hall, and as I 
was telling Editor Woodsit last week — " 

** Do you know Editor Woodsit } " asked 
Mr. Leet, interrupting me. 

''Indeed 1 do," said I; "he has promised 
to print my essay on the nebular hypothesis 
of Professor Lecouvrier as soon as his con- 
tract with the monometallist college profes- 
sors expires. He is one of the most intimate 
friends I have." 

" Then he is just the one to fix that City 
Hall matter for you," said Mr. Leet. 
.38 



EDITOR WOODSIT A TRUE FRIEND 

" Woodsit is the most potent political in- 
fluence in the midst of us." 

It was hard to understand why a potent 
political influence should be invoked in or- 
der to secure the tapping of a water main. 
However, I determined to enlist the cooper- 
ation of my journalistic friend. Twenty or 
thirty people were waiting outside Editor 
Woodsit's door. This number included 
noted clergymen, poets, authors, politicians, 
jurists, merchants, etc., etc. By some means 
or another. Editor Woodsit learned I was 
among the waiting throng, and he sent for 
me to come in. His private office is spa- 
cious and elegantly furnished. The walls 
are hung with splendid tapestries and costly 
oil paintings. Over Editor Woodsit's desk 
appears the legend, ''The Pen Is Mightier 
Than the Sword." Near the desk are rows 
of nickel-plated tubes, about six feet in 
height and two feet in diameter; the lids or 
covers to these tubes are opened by means 
of a keyboard in front of the editor. The 
tubes themselves contain the heads of the de- 
partments of the State and municipal govern- 
ments. 

>39 



THE HOUSE 

''What you tell me pains me deeply," 
said Mr. Woodsit, after he heard my story. 
"But there is no need of going to the City 
Hall about it; the matter can be attended to 
here. I never trifle with underlings when 
the responsible heads are at hand." 

Editor Woodsit reached over and touched 
a button on the keyboard ; it was button No. 
9. Immediately the lid or top of tube No. 9 
flew open and the head and face of a man 
appeared ; it was the head and face of Com- 
missioner Dent. 

"This friend of mine," said Editor Wood- 
sit, sternly, "complains that he can't get 
your department to connect the pipe with 
the water main in front of his property. My 
friend is a Republican, Dent, and he is a re- 
former. What excuse have you to offer for 
neglecting him ? " 

Commissioner Dent turned very pale and 
he vainly tried to stammer an apology. 

"This is a pretty kind of reform!" cried 
Editor Woodsit, savagely. "If a similar 
complaint occurs again I shall have your case 
investigated by my legal and spiritual coun- 
sellor, Joshua Selah, and may be have you 
140 



EDITOR WOODSIT A TRUE FRIEND 

impeached. Now see that Mr. Baker's 
reasonable demands are complied with at 
once. 

With these words Editor Woodsit touched 
another button, and the head and face of 
Commissioner Dent disappeared and the top 
closed down over the box. It was all the 
work of two or three minutes, and it was 
certainly the most marvellous experience I 
had ever met with. My wonderment in- 
creased when I learned an hour later, upon 
my arrival home, that less than fifteen 
minutes (as I figure it) after I left Editor 
Woodsit's office an employe of Commis- 
sioner Dent's department came galloping up 
to my place on a foam-flecked steed, and, 
vaulting from his saddle, unswung his melt- 
ing-furnace, soldering-irons, and other tools, 
and, quicker than you could say a pater 
noster, tapped the water main and made the 
desired connection with the pipe that fed my 
premises. 

"I guess you must have a pull at the 

City Hall," said Uncle Si; and then he went 

on to tell me how people who have no pull 

have to wait weeks, sometimes, before their 

141 



THE HOUSE 

just requirements are answered by the mu- 
nicipal authorities. If what Uncle Si tells me 
is true I cannot be too glad that 1 have what 
is even more efficacious than a pull at the 
City Hall — a friend in Editor Woodsit. 



142 



XIV 
THE VICTIM OF AN ORDINANCE. 

AND now that a plentiful supply of water 
. was provided, it seemed proper to 
celebrate by giving the lawn (poor abused 
thing!) a deluge of the refreshing element. 
The exceeding ardor of the sun and the ab- 
sence of rain had wrought havoc with the 
grass and shrubbery. The drought seemed 
determined to finish the work of destruction 
which the workmen, with their picks and 
spades, had begun. With a joyous heart, 
therefore, I applied myself to the task of 
rescuing the fainting vegetation. I bor- 
rowed Mr. Tiltman's hose because it was 
the best and longest in the neighborhood 
and was provided with a patent nozzle 
which was so versatile that there was ac- 
tually no detail in its business which it did 

'43 



THE HOUSE 

not perform in a most masterly way. I 
shall never forget the feeling of exultation 
with which I stood on that expansive lawn 
and sprayed the parched grass and drooping 
shrubbery. I fancied 1 could see the thirsty 
blades and leaves reach up to drink in the 
restoring element. My thoughts while I was 
thus engaged were similar, I suppose, to 
those of benevolent men who hasten to the 
succor of their suffering fellow-beings. I 
can imagine that it was with some such in- 
spiring feelings that relief was borne to Liv- 
ingstone in Africa and to Greely in the Arctic 
Circle. To the good man it is always a 
pleasure to do an act of magnanimity, and 
the fact that my considerate regard for our 
lawn involved no danger or privation did 
not serve in the least to abate my satisfac- 
tion in the performance of my task. 

While I was thus engaged 1 observed a 
stranger coming up the lawn toward me. 
1 bade him a very good morning, but he 
seemed disinclined to exchange civilities 
with me. He was a low-browed, roughish- 
looking fellow, and 1 conceived an imme- 
diate dislike for him. 

144 



THE VICTIM OF AN ORDINANCE 

*'You '11 have to give me your name," 
said he, very gruffly. 

''For what purpose?" I asked, for his 
tone and manner nettled me. 

"\ 'm a detective," said he, exhibiting a 
silver star on his vest front, "and I 'm on 
the trail of you ducks that sprinkle your 
lawns after legal hours. Oh, I 'm onto your 
racket." 

''Sir," said I, indignantly, "I have made 
no racket. I am a quiet, law-abiding citi- 
zen, and this is my own lawn to do with as 
I please." 

"Come, now, "said he, insolently, "don't 
give me any funny business. You 're sprink- 
lin' after hours and I 'm going to report you 
to police headquarters. There 's no use of 
kickin', so you 'd better give me your name 
an' save trouble." 

"Sir," 1 cried, "Reuben Baker is not a 
name to be ashamed of, and if you think 
that by any of your underhand hocus pocus 
you can trespass on my premises and pre- 
vent my caring for my own property you 
are grandly mistaken." 

"You '11 sing a different song to-morrer," 

•45 



THE HOUSE 

said the fellow, and 1 am sure I heard him 
chuckling to himself as he walked away. 

Later in the day I learned from neighbor 
Baylor that I had indeed transgressed the 
law by operating the lawn hose at ten 
o'clock in the morning. It seems that there 
is an ordinance imposing a fine upon all 
who sprinkle their lawns between eight 
o'clock in the morning and five o'clock in 
the afternoon. 

I declared in very vigorous English that 1 
would never submit to any such outrage, 
and my indignation touched the boiling 
point when, still later in the day, a police- 
man came to my house and handed me a 
document apprising me that 1 must give a 
good and sufficient bond for my appearance 
the next morning before his honor, Justice 
Fatty, to answer to the charge of having ma- 
liciously, etc., defied, disobeyed and broken 
the ordinance, etc. I went at once to seek 
the counsel of Lawyer Miles, for whose le- 
gal acumen and forensic eloquence I had 
harbored the profoundest veneration ever 
since I had heard his prosecution of a man 
named Tackleton for causing the death of 
146 



THE VICTIM OF AN ORDINANCE 

neighbor Baylor's pet dog. I recall that 
on that occasion there was not a dry eye in 
the court and that even the defendant him- 
self wept copiously; whereupon the presid- 
ing justice, fearing that he might be unduly 
influenced by the emotion of the auditors, 
ordered the constable to clear the room of 
everybody not a party to the cause. At this 
supreme moment Lawyer Miles, with stream- 
ing eyes and amid choking sobs, cried out: 
"Mercy, your honor; in the name of the 
tenderest and holiest of human considera- 
tions I appeal for mercy ! Turn out the men- 
folks if you will, but spare, oh, spare the 
women and children." 

Ever since this memorable occasion I have 
regarded Lawyer Miles as the foremost of 
living jurists, and it was the most natural 
thing in the world that I should determine 
to confide to him any legal business of mine 
that might arise — in which determination I 
was confirmed by a suspicion that Lawyer 
Miles never charged his neighbors any fee 
for his professional services. 

I was not a little surprised when, having 
heard my story, Lawyer Miles counselled me 

147 



THE HOUSE 

to plead guilty to the charge and to pay the 
regulation fine, which together with the 
costs (so called), amounted to seven dollars 
and fifty cents. It was in vain that 1 repre- 
sented to Lawyer Miles the outrage of pun- 
ishing a man for seeking to beautify his 
premises, and thereby to contribute to the 
comfort and delectation of the public gener- 
ally. Lawyer Miles took the narrow view 
that the ordinance had been violated, and 
that, therefore, the fine should be paid. 
"The ordinance may be an unwise one," 
said he. " In that event we should elect a 
city council that will repeal it. But so long 
as the law exists it should be enforced." 

The advice of Lawyer Miles, coupled with 
the tears of Alice, finally prevailed. Alice 
fancied that I was in danger of being com- 
mitted to prison, and she hysterically repre- 
sented to me the horror of the ignominy 
which would ever thereafter attach to our 
family name. In one breath she proposed to 
send post haste for our pastor, the Rev. Dr. 
Sungaulus, in the hope that by means of his 
spiritual ministrations I might be dissuaded 
from further defiance of the law; in the next 



THE VICTIM OF AN ORDINANCE 

breath she conjured me by every regard I 
had for the future of our children — Galileo, 
Herschel, Fanny, Erasmus, and Josephine — 
to listen to the Voice of Reason. At the 
mention of Josephine's name 1 weakened, 
for, as I have already intimated to you, the 
innocent babe has acquired a powerful hold 
upon the tendrils of my heart. In an instant 
my anger departed. 

" It shall be as you say, Alice : I will pay 
the fine and costs. But from this moment I 
consecrate my life to the election of council- 
men from the Twenty-fifth Ward who will 
repeal that odious ordinance and make it 
legal for property-owners to sprinkle their 
lawns when and how they please." 

In looking back over the short period of 
the history of ''our house" I find no other 
incident so disagreeable as this one which I 
have just narrated. Even at this remote date 
I cannot refer to it without feeling my gorge 
rise. By nature I am peaceful, and I am ex- 
ceeding slow to wrath. But anything that 
savors of injustice exasperates me to the de- 
gree of frenzy. I am still fixed in my deter- 
mination to secure the repeal of the ordinance 
149 



THE HOUSE 

which robbed me of seven dollars and fifty 
cents and is jeoparding the lives of ni}/ lilac 
bushes, my peonies, my twin cherry-trees 
(George and Martha), and my grass. I intend 
to see that the matter is brought up at tlie 
next quarterly meeting of the Buena Park 
Benevolent and Protective Citizens' Associa- 
tion, and you can depend upon it that when 
that association speaks its tones are heard 
around the world and go thundering down 
the ages. 

This affair of mine with the odious ordi- 
nance was duly reported in the daily news- 
papers through the delectable medium of the 
^olumn headed " Minor Criminal Items." It 
did not conduce to my equanimity to see 
my name catalogued with persons arrested 
for sneak thievery, pocket-picking, drunk- 
enness, brawling, and mayhem. 1 never be- 
fore suspected that my friends made a prac- 
tice of perusing the criminal calendar, but 
after the appearance of that disagreeable item 
in print I began to get letters from old ac- 
quaintances condoling with me and asking 
whether they could be of any service to me 
in my trouble. Some of these letters must 
150 



THE VICTIM OF AN ORDINANCE 

have been dispatched in a spirit of humor, 
but I see nothing mirthfull in the association 
of an honest man's name with crime, and 
the people who have sought to poke fun at 
me in this unpleasant affair need not be at all 
surprised if I do not bow to them the next 
time we meet. 

Another class of people I have no sym- 
pathy with are those who do not recognize 
in our purchase of a home a cause for gen- 
neral joy and congratulation. You may not 
believe it, but it is nevertheless a fact that 
within the last two months I have met 
people and apprised them of our purchase 
and they have never so much as expressed 
even the least bit of delight. My old friend 
Slashon Tomsing, who makes considerable 
pretense to being interested in the public 
welfare — why, when 1 met him at the Civic 
Federation rooms not long ago and began to 
tell him of our new home, instead of being 
swept away (as it were) upon a tidal wave 
of rapture, he immediately changed the 
theme of conversation and asked my opinion 
of bimetallism. I gave him to understand 
very distinctly that the public was in very 

I5> 



THE HOUSE 

poor business if it suffered itself to become 
interested in bimetallism or in any other ism 
so long as it had an opportunity to discuss 
"our new house " as a living, absorbing, and 
burning theme. 

Another friend, my old and particularly 
valued friend. Professor Sniff, curator of Ma- 
hon's Museum of Marvels — but I'll let that 
affair pass ; for Professor Sniff certainly did 
not intend to wound my feelings by his ap- 
parent indifference; moreover, he has prom- 
ised to send me for my private collection 
all the duplicates that occur in section E of 
his museum, which section is devoted ex- 
clusively to dried centipedes, tarantulas, and 
beetles and to Mexican lizards in bottles of 
alcohol. 

All who have ever engaged in the enter- 
prise of a new house will agree with me 
when I say that nothing else wounds one 
more deeply than the indifference of the rest 
of humanity to what is nearest and dearest 
to his heart. When I walk the street nowa- 
days I actually pity the crowds of people I 
see, because, forsooth, they know nothing 
of the great joy I have acquired in that 

152 



THE VICTIM OF AN ORDINANCE 

blessed house. Alice made me take her to 
hear a Mme. Melba in Italian opera last 
month at the Auditorium. As we came 
away Alice asked: " Was n't it grand ? " 

" Yes," I answered, **and yet amid it all 
1 was oppressed by a feeling of sadness. 
For, of all the six thousand souls in that 
splendid building, only you and I, dear 
Alice, were aware that the old Schmitthei- 
mer place had passed into the possession of 
the two happiest people on earth." 



I?? 



XV 

THE QUESTION OF INSURANCE 



M 



Y neighbor, Mr. Teddy, called on me 
one morning as I sat under a willow 
tree watching the tinner at work on the roof 
and wondering whether it was really as nice 
and warm on a tin roof under an unobscured 
sun as it seemed to be. 

"Do you know," said Mr. Teddy, cordi- 
ally, "this is the first time 1 have ever 
visited this place. Frequently in my walks 
of an evening I have passed here, and, in 
common with others, I have admired the 
graceful slope of the lawn, the stately dignity 
of the trees, and the bright colors of the 
flowers that here and there dot the verdant 
expanse. Surely in the possession of this 
charming estate you are, my dear friend, one 
of the most fortunate of mortals. Your life 
amid these picturesque environments, in this 

•54 ' 



THE QUESTION OF INSURANCE 

sequestered spot, far from the din and tur- 
moil of the urban throng, will be in every 
respect ideal — a dream, sir, a poetic dream." 

You will perhaps understand by this time 
that I regard Mr. Teddy as an exceptionally 
worthy and pleasant gentleman. 

" And," continued Mr. Teddy, "it would 
be cruel if your studious researches in this 
academic grove were by any chance to be 
interrupted by any harassing business care. 
The serpent of worldly solicitude, sir, should 
never be suffered to enter this veritable 
Eden." 

"You are right, my good friend and 
neighbor," said I, "but how can I prevent 
the intrusion of care, since, alas! I am merely 
human ?" 

"It behooves you to make provision 
against every contingency," answered Mr. 
Teddy. " Do I understand that you carry 
insurance upon this residence?" 

" Insurance ? Why, no, I think not," said 
I. "Insurance is a matter I never thought 
of." 

"Is it possible," cried Mr. Teddy, "that 
you have neglected to provide against that 



THE HOUSE 

serious loss which would accrue if a careless 
workman were to drop a lighted match in 
yonder pile of shavings ? Think for one mo- 
ment, sir, of the ruin that would confront 
you if this magnificent but uninsured archi- 
tectural pile were to be swept away by the 
pale hand of the remorseless fire fiend ! I beg 
of you to provide yourself with the means of 
redress ere you are overtaken by the bitter 
pill of adversity. Mr. Baker, your beautiful 
home should be insured at once I " 

It then occurred to me for the first time 
that neighbor Teddy was the general west- 
ern agent of the Royal Liliuokalani Fire, 
Marine and Accident Insurance Company of 
Hawaii. I have often wondered why a man 
when he embarks in the insurance business 
invariably attaches himself to a concern lo- 
cated in some far distant clime, and now that 
I am thinking of it, I will add that I have 
often wondered why the efficacy of patent 
medicines is so often testified to by the affi- 
davits of people with strange names who 
reside in queer streets in obscure hamlets 
hundreds of miles distant from the place of 
publication. 

156 



THE QUESTION OF INSURANCE 

"It would be wise of you," said Mr. 
Teddy, "to let me write you out a policy 
immediately. It is always prudent to take 
time by the forelock. Our rates are low, and, 
as you doubtless are aware, our company is 
the most prosperous in the world. We 
were awarded a medal at the World's Fair. 

"I know absolutely nothing about these 
things," said I, candidly, "but I suppose we 
ought to have the place insured. I should 
be glad to have you drop around some even- 
ing and talk the matter over with Alice and 
me." 

To this suggestion Mr. Teddy took very 
kindly and he promised to call very soon. 
As he retired down the gravel walk Colonel 
Bobbett Doller came up the same. The two 
gentlemen saluted each other very coldly. 

"Colonel Doller is coming to talk to me 
about that twenty-five foot strip of land," 
says I to myself ; but I was in error. 

"Ah, good morning, neighbor Baker, 
good morning! " cried Colonel Doller, cheer- 
ily. "Beautiful weather we 're having — 
too dry, though, much too dry! All nature 
is parched. We need rain badly; otherwise 

157 



THE HOUSE 

the most lamentable consequences will fol- 
low. I dare say you have noticed by the pa- 
per how alarmingly prevalent conflagrations 
have become ? " 

' * Have they ? " I asked, in genuine surprise. 

''Shockingly so," answered Colonel Dol- 
ler. ''The record is simply appalling. If 
this thing continues a lot of the little mush- 
room insurance companies will fail; it 's an 
ill wind that blows nobody good. The pub- 
lic will presently awaken to a realization of 
the danger of patronizing the irresponsible 
concerns which are trying to do business 
under the shadow of the old and reliable 
companies." 

" Do you really think there will be a pan- 
ic ? " I asked. 

"Among the small fry, yes," answered 
Colonel Doller; "but nothing short of a uni- 
versal cataclysm will feaze to the slightest 
degree the Vesuvius Assurance Company 
(limited) of Piddleton, England, the oldest 
and staunchest insurance company in the 
world, of which I am, as perhaps you know, 
the general manager for the western hemi- 
sphere." 

158 



THE QUESTION OF INSURANCE 

''We — and when I say we," continued 
Colonel Doller, ' ' I mean the Vesuvius — we 
have a cash capital of eighteen million 
pounds, and a reserve fund of twelve million 
five hundred and sixty-eight thousand two 
hundred pounds, three shillings, and six 
pence. Our losses last year were six million 
three hundred thousand pounds in round 
numbers, and our premiums were eight mil- 
lion five hundred and sixty-three thousand 
two hundred and sixty-five pounds and 
eighteen pence. So you can see for your- 
self (for figures do not lie) that the Vesuvius 
is as solid as the everlasting hills." 

*'The Royal Liliuokalani is a pretty good 
company, is n't it .^ " says I. 

" The Royal Liliuokalani ? " repeated Col- 
onel Doller. ' ' The Royal Liliuokalani ? Let 
me see — I don't know that I ever heard of 
it. It 's a Milwaukee concern, is n't it ? " 

"No," said I, "my understanding is that 
it is a Hawaiian enterprise." 

"Possibly so — very likely it is," said 

Colonel Doller, indifferently. There are so 

many of these little schemes springing up 

nowadays that 1 do not pretend to keep track 

159 



THE HOUSE 

of them. If, however, you should at any 
time contemplate insuring you will, of course, 
come to the Vesuvius." 

I repeated to Colonel Doller what 1 had 
told Mr. Teddy about the feasibility of con- 
sulting Alice. Colonel Doller replied that 
while the Vesuvius was entirely too big and 
too conservative a company ever to skirmish 
for business, he would, purely out of regard 
for his long friendship for me, call that eve- 
ning to have a business talk with Alice and 
me. 

Later in the day I had a visit from Fred- 
erick Jeems, another neighbor engaged in 
the profession of fire insurance. He began 
his attack adroitly by complimenting my new 
house and by regretting that I was shingling 
the roof. 

" But so long as you 're insured," said he, 
carelessly, " I don't know that it makes any 
difference whether you use shingles or 
slate." 

I confessed that I had not taken out any 
insurance, and this gave him the desired op- 
portunity to bring up his batteries of elo- 
quence, of argument, of statistics, and of 



THE QUESTION OF INSURANCE 

figures. Before he was done he had over- 
whelmed the Royal Liliuokalani of Hawaii 
and the Vesuvius of Piddleton with a genu- 
ine avalanche of scorn and derision, and had 
quite convinced me that the only solvent 
and secure insurance concern in the world 
was the Deutsche Kaiser of Bomberg-am- 
Rhine. In an inspired moment I bade Mr. 
Jeems come round that very evening to pre- 
sent his facts and figures to Alice, and I 
laughed slyly to myself as I pictured the 
meeting between himself, Mr. Teddy, and 
Colonel Doller. This may strike you as 
having been malicious, but I claim that under 
the circumstances I was warranted in plan- 
ning this practical joke. 

Having disposed of these three gentlemen, 
I flattered myself that I was temporarily done 
with the vexatious details of insurance, and 
I was getting ready to bank up one of the 
flowerbeds with black dirt when who should 
come along but another neighbor, and a very 
charming one, too — Angus Cameron Mac- 
leod ? For two years we have been more 
or less intimate. Macleod combines many 
strangely diverse accomplishments. He ex- 

l6l 



THE HOUSE 

ecutes the sword dance with singular grace, 
and he recites Robert Burns' poems and 
passages from '' Marmion " by the yard, and 
with inspiring animation. Although I am in 
no sense a music critic, nor even a connois- 
seur, I will confess that 1 have often been 
actually transported with delight by neighbor 
Macleod's rendition of " The Campbells Are 
Coming " on the bagpipes. At the same 
time he is a skilful rhetorician and severe 
logician, as all who have heard his defence 
of Presbyterianism will testify, and I will 
concede that I never heard anything more 
absorbingly fascinating than his exposition 
of the honest and ennobling old doctrine of 
infant damnation. If you knew Macleod 
you 'd agree with me that he is a man of 
parts. 

**Now that your house is pretty nearly 
done," said Macleod, *'you ought to take 
out some insurance in our company, the 
Bonny Thistle Marine of Inverness." 

*'But gracious me!" I cried in astonish- 
ment. '' Why should I take out any marine 
insurance on a house ? " 

" For the very best reason in the world," 
162 



THE QUESTION OF INSURANCE 

answered Mr. Macleod. " Your house 
stands within two hundred yards of one of 
the fiercest inland seas of the world. Even 
now you can hear the tempestuous billows 
dashing wildly upon yonder treacherous 
sands, and you can see the surf madly 
reaching out as if to overwhelm this fair spot 
with its fatal fury. At any time a tidal 
wave is likely to sweep in from the frown- 
ing shores of Michigan. Fancy for one mo- 
ment what would become of this beautiful 
but delicate fabric if that mighty lake were 
to burst its confines and surge in one vast 
wall in this direction ! Has not the immor- 
tal Scott truly said : 

*' Against the wrath of nature how vain 
the works of man ? 

*'My dear Baker, you certainly are too 
sensible a man to be blind to the security 
which is held out to you in this supreme 
moment of peril by the Bonny Thistle Marine 
of Inverness." 

I admit that I knew not what to say. I 
had never before suspected any of these 
dangers which, according to my friends, 
163 



THE HOUSE 

now seemed imminent. On the one hand 
our cherished new house was threatened by 
fire; on the other hand that same dear edi- 
fice seemed to be doomed to a watery grave. 
Under these conflicting threatenings what 
was an inexperienced man to do ? Heaven 
be praised, my presence of mind did not de- 
sert me. I referred Mr. Macleod to Alice, as 
I had referred the others. It was her house, 
and she would have to be responsible for it 
against the devouring elements. 

That night I dreamed that the awful sug- 
gestions of Messrs. Teddy, Jeems, Doller, and 
Macleod had been realized. I dreamed that 
the new house was confronted upon one 
side by a wall of flame, and upon the other 
by a wall of water. Destruction and death 
seemed imminent. I dreamed that, trusting 
rather the mercy of the waves than the fero- 
city of the flames, 1 leaped into the billows 
and struggled like a Titan with them. I 
awoke, screaming with affright. 



164 



XVI 
NEIGHBOR ROBBINS' PLATYPUS 

I WISH you knew Burr Robbins. It is 
quite likely, however, that you do know 
him, for he has been conspicuously before 
the public for a number of years. Mr. Rob- 
bins lives just across the way from the old 
Schmittheimer place, and he has surrounded 
himself with comforts and luxuries of a most 
extraordinary character. He is a retired cir- 
cus proprietor, and he has taken with him 
into retirement many of the most startling 
features of the menagerie which used to 
figure as one of the most delectable compo- 
nent parts of the ''absolutely greatest ag- 
glomeration of marvels exhibiting under one 
canvas." 

In his front yard Mr. Robbins pastures 
two trained buffalo, a sacred cow, a gnu (or 
horned horse), two musk deer, a giraffe, a 
163 



THE HOUSE 

woolly horse, a five-Iegged calf and a moose. 
In the back yard there are two white bear 
cubs, a baby elephant, a nest of pythons, 
half a dozen ostriches, a learned pig, seve- 
ral alligators and crocodiles, and a giant sloth 
from South America. The stable is well 
stocked with monkeys, parrots, eagles, 
lizards, tortoises and other curiosities, and 
in the watering trough are a sea serpent 
and a mermaid (said to be the only speci- 
mens of these marvels in a domesticated 
state). 

Alice expressed some anxiety at first that 
the proximity of the strange creatures might 
prove unpleasant to us, and she strictly for- 
bade little Erasmus associating with the py- 
thons or pulling the crocodiles' tails. Mr. 
Robbins has assured us, however, that his 
pets are docilaand trustworthy, and it is his 
custom to invite the little children of the 
neighborhood to visit and play with the most 
tractable of them. 

, 1 got acquainted with neighbor Robbins in 
a rather curious manner. His platypus es- 
caped from its cage in the stable and sought 
refuge in our front yard. I discovered that 
166 



NEIGHBOR ROBBINS' PLATYPUS 

it had made a nest in one of our lilac bushes 
and had laid an egg in it. With eggs at 
twenty cents a dozen and our family fond of 
custard, an industrious platypus is by no 
means an unwelcome visitor. When Mr. 
Robbins came looking for his vagrant pet I 
suggested that a flock of platypuses would 
be a decided improvement upon the poultry 
with which the average farmer stocks his 
farm. 1 was considerably surprised to learn 
from Mr. Robbins that the market price of 
platypuses is eight hundred dollars apiece, 
and I at once foresaw that this strange crea- 
ture was not likely to become the dreaded 
competitor of the hen in the midst of us. 

Erasmus and little Josephine became deep- 
ly interested in Mr. Robbins, and they are 
now spending a large share of their time in 
the society either of that fascinating gentle- 
man or of his equally fascinating wild beasts. 
Erasmus has learned to throw a back-som- 
ersault with surprising ease and grace and 
to sing a comic song with electrical effect. 
These accomplishments he has acquired un- 
der the careful tutelage of Rufe Botts, former- 
ly known to fame as Professor Botts, manager 
167 



THE HOUSE 

of the Nonpareil Congress of Trained Dogs 
and Trick Ponies. I understand that he also 
served Mr. Robbins in "the palmy days " as 
a clown in the ring during the regular per- 
formance and as a serio-comic vocalist at the 
concert immediately after the show under 
the great canvas. Relentless time, however, 
rings in wondrous changes, and the whilom 
Professor Rufus Botts, pride alike of the am- 
phitheatre and of the concert stage, is now 
plain Rufe Botts on a salary of four dollars a 
week (and found) as Mr. Robbins' man of 
all work. 

Alice and I have feared that Rufe's influence 
might not be beneficial to the children. It 
pains us to observe that Josephine has 
learned to ride a padded horse and to leap 
with surprising certainty through a hoop and 
over a banner. Erasmus does not disguise 
his intention of joining a circus when he 
reaches the age of maturity, and I happened 
to overhear Rufe remark the other day that 
our daughter Fanny, with just a leetle more 
practice, would make a ne plus ultra snake- 
charmer and knife-thrower. Mr. Robbins 
has laughed at our solicitude; he tells us that 
168 



NEIGHBOR ROBBINS' PLATYPUS 



these are the vagarious fiincies and exuberant 
whims of youth and that they will duly die 
out. This is really very consoling to me, 
for I can conceive of nothing else more hu- 
miliating than the spectacle of our beloved 
Josephine flaunting around a circus ring up- 
on the back of a fat horse and attired in 
shockingly scanty raiment. It would break 
his mother's heart if Erasmus were to diverge 
from that course in theology which she has 
mapped out and were to embark in the pic- 
turesque profession of turning somersaults 
in public. Our family reputation would 
surely be irreparably damaged if our Fanny 
were to be beguiled into the fascinating but 
hazardous arts of a snake-charmer and a 
knife-thrower! Heaven send that our fears 
be dissipated by future events! 

And yet, full of temptations and of misery 
as I believe the career of a circus performer 
to be, I am entertained and instructed by 
neighbor Robbins' recital of his exploits and 
experiences, and I am deeply stirred by his 
narrative of the adventures he had in the 
capture of those same wild beasts which 
now embellish his expansive estate in Clar- 
169 



THE HOUSE 

endon Avenue. Indeed, a peculiar interest 
is now attached by me to each particular 
beast, for 1 have heard Mr. Robbins tell how 
in their native jungles or on their native 
pampas or in their native lagoons or among 
their native rocky fastnesses he sought and 
found and comprehended the lemurs, the 
bisons, the alligators, the rackaboars, and 
the other marvels of zoology. 

It is very pleasant, 1 can assure you, to 
listen to tales of adventure while one is en- 
gaged at the somewhat prosaic task of trim- 
ming a lilac bush or of weeding the pansy 
bed. Whenever he discovers me at this 
kind of toil neighbor Robbins comes over 
and leans up against a tree and beguiles the 
tedium of labor with a bit of personal ex- 
perience. I can't begin to tell you how at- 
tached I have already become to Mr. Rob- 
bins. I have already made up my mind that 
when his own front lawn gets pretty well 
cleaned out I shall ask neighbor Robbins to 
pasture his sacred cow, horned horse, and 
five-legged calf in our front yard for a spell. 

I shall never forget the shock I had one 
afternoon while Mr. Robbins and I were 
170 



NEIGHBOR ROBBINS' PLATYPUS 

visiting on our front lawn. I had been 
pruning one of the poplars and Mr. Robbins 
was telling me of the difficulty Professor 
Rufus Botts and he had once had trying to 
teach the wild man of Borneo to eat olives 
and anchovy paste. Suddenly I saw a strange 
object pass up the street on a bicycle. I had 
never seen the like before. My acquaint- 
ance with Burr Robbins' menagerie had 
made me familiar with most of the curious 
forms of animal life, but never before had I 
seen so remarkable an object as I beheld 
upon that bicycle. 

''Look there! Look quick!" said I to 
neighbor Robbins. "It is going up the 
street and it has wheels under it! " 

''Where.^" asked Mr. Robbings; "Idon't 
see anything." 

' ' Yes, you do, " said I ; * ' I mean the queer 
thing on the bicycle — can it be one of your 
trained animals that has got away ? " 

"Bless your soul, man," answered Mr. 
Robbins, "that 's not an animal! That 's a 
woman! " 

"Oh, no, it is n't," said I. "No woman 
ever dressed like that." 
171 



THE HOUSE 

''No woman ever dressed like that?" 
echoed Mr. Robbins, with a mocking laugh ; 
"why, neighbor Baker, where have you 
been hiding so long that you 're so behind 
the times?" 

**I 've not been hiding at all," said I, in- 
dignantly. " I 've been living in Evanston 
Avenue, and a very worthy locality it is, 
too!" 

"And do you mean to tell me," asked Mr. 
Robbins, " that women don't ride the bicycle 
in Evanston Avenue?" 

"Of course they do," said I, "but they 
don't look like that/ The women that ride 
in Evanston Avenue wear dresses, the same 
as other women wear. This strange object 
(which you declare is a woman) wears 
pants!" 

"Those ain't pants," said Mr. Robbins; 
"those are bloomers." 

"I don't care what you call them," said I, 
"they 're pants just the same, and, what is 
more, very ill-fitting pants at that!" 

"That," said Mr. Robbins, "is the new 
style of bicycle attire for the feminine sex. 
Shocking as it may appear to you, it is much 
172 



NEIGHBOR ROBBINS' PLATYPUS 

more ample than the costume which I found 
to be popular among the female bicyclists of 
France during my visit to that country last 
summer." 

" But you don't mean to tell me," said 1, 
"that women make a practice of riding up 
and down Clarendon Avenue in pants! " 

" Certainly, 1 do, "said Mr. Robbins. ''We 
do things in style over this way. Evanston 
Avenue is a century behind the times. Oh, 
you '11 learn a lot of things when you get 
moved over here into your new house." 

''But I '11 not stand it!" I cried. "I'll in- 
form the police and 1 '11 have the law on these 
brazen creatures. What would Alice say! 
And what would become of. Fanny and of 
little Josephine if they were brought up under 
the demoralizing influences of spectacles like 
that! Do you suppose 1 'm going to have 
Galileo and Herschel corrupted ? And little 
Erasmus — shall his pure, innocent mind be 
contaminated ? Never, neighbor Robbins, 
never! " 

But Mr. Robbins did not seem to view the 
matter at all as I did. It was evident that 
his long connection with the circus had cal- 
173 



THE HOUSE 

loused the sensibility of his perceptive facul- 
ties. He was inclined to jeer at what he 
termed my prudishness. I was glad to be 
back in Evanston Avenue once more, secure 
in an atmosphere of propriety. It was sev- 
eral hours, however, before I could get my 
mind away from thoughts of that woman in 
pants, so profoundly had her appearance in 
that strangely abbreviated costume shocked 
me. 



»74 



XVII 
OUR DEVICES FOR ECONOMIZING 

UNLESS you want to render yourself li- 
able to an attack of nervous prostration 
you should never watch a skilful workman 
nailing on lath. It is the most bewildering 
spectacle you can conceive of. I watched it 
for twenty minutes one day — it was when 
they were lathing the big front room down- 
stairs, the library, and my brain began to reel 
as if I were intoxicated. I actually believe 
that if Uncle Si had not led me away and set 
me down under one of the willow-trees in 
the front yard I should have had a spell of 
sickness, and may be even now had been 
confined in the incurable ward of a lunatic 
asylum. I can't understand how they do it 
so accurately and so fast and with such ap- 
parent ease. The whole proceeding is so 
fascinating that I really believe that, next to 

•75 



THE HOUSE 

proficiency in the science of astronomy, I 
should like to be an expert at nailing lath. 
In every line of mechanics my education has 
been grievously neglected. 

Alice says that 1 am not practical enough 
to make a successful carpenter; she gets this 
unfair opinion of me from an incident in our 
early wedded life which she delights in re- 
calling in the presence of people upon whom 
1 am particularly desirous of making a favor- 
able impression. It seems that when Galileo 
and Herschel were little tots 1 undertook to 
construct a playhouse for them in the back 
yard. This was at a time when 1 was ex- 
ceptionally busied with my professional stud- 
ies ; Mars was rapidly approaching perihelion, 
and 1 had been commissioned by the Blue 
Island Society of the Arts and Sciences to 
prepare a chart of the bottle-neck seas. It 
would have been surprising indeed had I not 
been preoccupied — too absorbed in intel- 
lectual pursuits to cope successfully with 
any such worldly and prosaic thing as a play- 
house in the back yard. Yet Alice insists 
that it is most amusing that I should have 
neglected to provide that structure with win- 
176 



OUR DEVICES FOR ECONOMIZING 

dows and a door, and that, as a natural con- 
sequence, I should have nailed myself up 
securely in that affair. 

On another occasion I painted myself 
gradually into a corner while attempting to 
paint the floor of the spare chamber. Alice 
reproached me bitterly for this; she said she 
supposed everybody knew that a floor should 
always be painted toward, and not away 
from the door. Alice seems never to con- 
sider that few other people are gifted with 
such intuitions as she has, but are compelled 
to drag along through life learning by ex- 
perience. 

I do not wish to be understood as com- 
plaining or railing against fate because I am 
not skilled in mechanics ; I recognize as a dis- 
tinct boon the fact that I am awkward in the 
use of tools, and the further fact that I have 
no ambition in the direction of mechanical 
endeavor has doubtless saved me many a 
bruised thumb and a vast amount of hard 
labor. When I see my neighbors tinkering 
away at their storm windows and garbage 
boxes and grape vine trellises and dog ken- 
nels and window screens and front gates, I 
'77 



THE HOUSE 

do not neglect to thank heaven that Alice 
has the best of reasons for not asking me to 
engage in similar odd jobs about our house. 

Still, I am sure that, if 1 ever do engage in 
any avocation, it will be that of nailing lath, 
an employment requiring an exercise of pa- 
tience, of intelligence, and of skill to the 
highest degree. 

Until we bought the new place I had no 
idea that the expense of conducting an es- 
tablishment of one's own was so large. It 
seems, however, that when one has once be- 
come a property-owner there is no end to the 
things one must have and cannot get along 
without. It is impossible to say how or 
where the venders of patent arrangements 
find out about you, but no sooner do you buy 
a place of your own than you are run to 
death by people who actually prove to you 
that you must have what they have to sell. 

Alice and I are very happy in the confi- 
dence that we have secured a simple device 
which is going to reduce our coal bill by at 
least fifty per cent. ; it is a fuel-saving ma- 
chine which is to be attached to our new 
steam-heating apparatus, and if it accom- 
178 



OUR DEVICES FOR ECONOMIZING 

plishes anything like what the agent said it 
would, why, it is worth five dollars ten 
times over! And we are expecting won- 
ders, too, of the gas-saving apparatus for 
which we have paid three dollars and which 
is to be attached to the meter with such 
pleasing results that we shall have five times 
more light at a saving of at least sixty per 
cent in cost. 

I find upon consulting my expense ac- 
count for May that during that month alone 
Alice and I purchased no fewer than thirty 
devices of an economical character. We 
have three different kinds of smoke-consu- 
mers, an automatic carpet-sweeper, a bottle 
of lightning polish for plate-glass, a dish- 
washing machine, a knife-scourer, a potato- 
parer, two automatic lawn-hose reels, a sew- 
er-gas consumer, a patent ashes-sifter, etc., 
etc. It has required a considerable outlay 
of money to get stocked up with these 
things, but we regard them as a very wise 
investment. It is wholly consistent with 
our policy of economy to provide ourselves 
with the means of making a marked reduc- 
tion in our expenses. We flatter ourselves 
179 



THE HOUSE 

that before we have been in our house six 
months we shall have demonstrated that we 
are not upon earth for the purpose of en- 
riching gas companies and other soulless 
corporations. 

But 1 think the wisest investment we have 
made is the insurance policy which we have 
taken out on Alice's life. The incident came 
about so curiously that I feel inclined to tell 
it in detail. 1 was one evening sitting out 
in front of our house — the rented one, I 
mean — watching the stars gradually making 
their appearance in the cerulean vault, and 1 
was marvelling at the endless wonders of 
the heavenly expanse, when I became aware 
that somebody was approaching. 1 saw 
that this somebody was my Sheridan Road 
friend and neighbor, Treese Smith. He was 
whistling softly to himself an air which I 
did not recognize, but which my daughter 
Fanny (who is a music connoisseur) identi- 
fied as *'My Pearl Is a Bowery Girl." Pre- 
suming that he was coming to pay me a 
neighborly call, I arose to meet him. Fancy 
my amazement when upon beholding me 
Mr. Smith burst into tears. I do not re- 

i8o 



OUR DEVICES FOR ECONOMIZING 

member ever to have been more astounded 
than by this sudden transition from gayety 
to grief. I could hardly find words to ask 
my friend what trouble had befollen him. 

' ' I was hoping to meet no one, " he sobbed, 
"for I am in no condition of mind to asso- 
ciate with my fellow-beings." 

" It is evident," I interposed, "that some 
great sorrow has come upon you; surely 
you would not hesitate to come to me for 
sympathy." 

"You are right," said Mr. Smith, making 
a heroic effort to gather himself together. 
"It would be selfish of me not to give so 
dear a neighbor as you a chance to share 
my misery. Read this." 

He handed me a bit of printed stuff which 
he had evidently cut from a newspaper. I 
stood under the street lamp and read it in 
this wise : 

Kansas City, May 23. — During the thunder-storm 
to-day Mrs. Bolivar Bowers, wife of the well-known 
scientist, was struck and destroyed by lightning. De- 
ceased leaves a husband and five children; no insur- 
ance. 

"Ah, I see," said I in my gentlest tone; 



THE HOUSE 

"she was a dear friend — perhaps a relative 
of yours." 

''No, not that," said Mr. Smith, still sob- 
bing; "you misinterpret my grief. This 
party was in no way akin to me except un- 
der that common descent from the old Adam 
which makes all humanity brothers and sis- 
ters. I did not know deceased, nor did 1 
ever see her." 

"Then why," I asked, in some astonish- 
ment, " why are you so moved by the news 
of her death ?" 

"To one of my nature," exclaimed Mr. 
Smith, "the circumstances detailed in this 
item are most painful to contemplate. We 
find here recorded the sudden demise of the 
sole support of a husband and five children 
— a wife and mother snatched away by 
death, leaving a helpless family without any 
visible means of support." 

" But why without any means of sup- 
port?" I asked. 

' ' It says so, " answered Mr. Smith. "The 
husband is a scientist and is therefore by na- 
ture and by occupation disqualified for earn- 
ing a livelihood." 



OUR DEVICES FOR ECONOMIZING 

"Surely enough," said I, "that is quite 
true." 

"Can you picture a more distressing 
scene," continued Mr. Smith, still in tears, 
"than that of this helpless father and his 
five little ones standing above that lifeless 
lady and wondering where their food and 
raiment will come from now ? it is sad, it 
is agonizing, it is awful! And yet it all 
might have been averted — all this solicitude 
about the future. Had Mrs. Bolivar Bowers 
taken out a policy in my company, the In- 
ternational Mutual Tontine Life Insurance 
Company of Paw Paw, Indiana, the aspect 
to-day would have been different, and Boli- 
var Bowers and his callov/ brood of little 
Bowerses would have reason to bless the 
rod that smote them. Ah, friend Baker, 
the International Mutual Tontine has done a 
glorious work toward mitigating the wrath 
of the grim destroyer; under tfTe grace of its 
soothing balm bereavement becomes an ac- 
tual pleasure, death loses its sting, and the 
grave its victory." 

From this small, casual beginning followed 
that train of explanation and argument upon 
183 



THE HOUSE 

Mr. Smith's part which led to Alice's tak- 
ing out a life policy in the Indiana com- 
pany. Mr. Smith is a man of broad and deep 
human sympathies. Had he not happened 
upon that newspaper item, had his heart not 
gone out in passionate sympathy toward the 
bereaved Bolivar Bowers and his little ones, 
had he not wandered in an irresponsible 
paroxysm of grief in the direction of my 
house that evening, and had he not confided 
his sorrow to me — why, then we should 
not have known of the greatest of human 
benefactors, and Alice would not now be 
safe (so to speak) in the bosom of the Inter- 
national Mutual Tontine Life Insurance Com- 
pany of Paw Paw. 

I do not regard these things as accidental; 
they are special providences. 



184 



XVIII 
I STATE MY VIEWS ON TAXATION 

OF the many friends who hastened to 
congratulate us when they heard that 
we had acquired a home, none was more de- 
lighted than Gamlin Harland. I take it for 
granted that you have read Mr. Harland's 
numerous books, and that you know all 
about Mr. Harland himself. Not to know 
of him is to argue one's self unknown. 

My first meeting with Mr. Harland was at 
a single-tax convention six years ago ; he was 
a delegate to that convention from Wiscon- 
sin, and I was a delegate from Illinois. I was 
a delegate because the manager of the party, 
who lives in New York, could n't find any- 
body else to serve as the delegate from the 
congressional district in which I lived. I 
thought that rather than have that district 
unrepresented I ought to serve, and so I did. 
.85 



•THE HOUSE 

The acquaintance I then made with Gamlin 
Harland soon ripened into friendship, and 
this intimacy has lasted ever since. Mr. 
Harland insists that I am a single-tax man, 
and it may be that I am in theory, although 
1 certainly am not in practice; for I never 
have paid any tax of any kind, be it single 
or double. 

As soon as he heard of our purchase Mr. 
Harland came out to inspect the premises, 
and of course he was delighted. 

'' This will make a new man of you," said 
he to me. " It will take your mind off your 
impracticable star-gazing and moonshining, 
and divert your attention into the channels 
of realism. These premises are so spacious 
as to admit of your engaging to a considera- 
ble extent in agriculture; you can now lay 
aside the telescope and the spectrum for the 
spade and the hoe; the field of speculation 
can be abandoned for this noble acre which 
I hope soon to see smiling into an abundant 
harvest." 

''Yes, "said 1, " itis my purpose to engage 
largely in the cultivation of flowers." 

"Pshaw ! " cried Mr. Harland, ''there you 
1 86 



I STATE MY VIEWS ON TAXATION 

go again ! Don't you know that flowers are 
wholly worthless except in so far as they 
pander to the gratification of a sensuous ap- 
petite ? It would be a crime to surrender 
these opportunities to ignoble uses. You 
must raise vegetables here, or perhaps some 
of the small fruits would thrive better in this 
rich sandy soil." 

Investigation satisfied Mr. Harland that 
blackberries were the particular kind of small 
fruit to which the soil seemed adapted. I 
was not surprised at this, for I knew that the 
blackberry was a favorite with Mr. Harland 
— in fact, Mr. Harland is the only author I 
know of who has written a novel whose plot 
hinges (so to speak) upon a blackberry. So 
passionately fond of this fruit is he that he 
devotes a part of the year to cultivating 
blackberries on his Wisconsin farm. There 
are invidious persons who intimate that his 
only reason for cultivating the blackberry is 
to be found in the fact that nothing else will 
grow on his farm, and presumably you have 
heard the epigram which the romanticists 
have perpetrated at Mr. Harland's expense, 
and which represents that ambitious and ag- 
.87 



THE HOUSE 

gressive gentleman as raising blackberries in 
summer and in winter. 

After getting me thorougly inoculated with 
the blackberry idea, and having duly im- 
pressed me with his theory that true manhood 
consisted of making one's self unspeakably 
miserable and sweaty with a shovel and a 
hoe, Mr. Harland broached his favorite topic, 
and ventured the assertion that now that 1 
was the possessor of taxable property I would 
become as rabid a single-tax advocate as 
Henry George himself. I answered that I 
already advocated a single-tax system, for 
the reason that if we could only once get a 
single-tax system in vogue we should then 
be but one remove from no taxation at all, 
and would have less difficulty in securing 
that desirable end ultimately. 

The truth of the matter is, I object to tax- 
ation only in so far as it affects me. I have 
no objection to other folk being taxed, but I 
do not fancy being taxed myself. I agree 
with Brother Harland that there is palpable 
injustice in making an industrious and pub- 
lic-spirited man pay for the so-called privi- 
lege of building himself a home; he pays the 
188 



I STATE MY VIEWS ON TAXATION 

carpenters and masons and painters for mak- 
ing that home, and he is then expected to 
pay the city and the State for having invested 
his hard earnings in a permanent enterprise 
which gives employment to the laborer, 
which beautifies the neighborhood, and 
which enhances the value of the adjacent 
property. The object of taxation (as Mr. 
Harland asserts and as I believe) is to enrich 
the office-holding class, a class of loose mo- 
rality, utterly heartless and utterly conscience- 
less, and 1 agree with Mr. Harland in the 
opinion that the time is not far distant when 
the honest people of this country will arise 
as one man and subvert the corrupt hand of 
politics which is now grinding us under the 
iron heel of oppression. 

It is seldom that I give expression to my 
views upon this subject, for the reason that 
1 fear they may be misinterpreted. I have 
always had an apprehension that I would be 
mistaken for an anarchist, which I am not; 1 
am an advocate of peace and of the laws ; 
1 do not believe in violence of any kind. 

And now that I am speaking of violence, I 
am reminded of an incident which illustrates 



THE HOUSE 

the thoughtless cruelty of too many of our 
youth. It was scarcely two weeks ago that 
I detected a boy (apparently about twelve 
years of age) climbing one of the willow trees 
in our old Schmittheimer place. I crept up 
on him unawares and speedily became satis- 
fied that he was after the eggs in a bird's 
nest that nestled cozily in a crotch of the 
limbs. 1 shouted lustily at the young scape- 
grace, and his confusion convinced me that 
my suspicions were correct. I kept him in 
his uncomfortable position in the tree until 
1 had lectured him severely for the cruelty he 
contemplated and until I had exacted from 
him a promise that he would forever there- 
after abstain from the practice of robbing 
birds' nests. The tears which trickled down 
his face assured me no less than his solemn 
protests did that the lad was indeed penitent, 
but the fellow had no sooner descended from 
the tree and reached a point of safety the other 
side of the fence than he gave utterance to sen- 
timents which wholly disabused my mind of 
all faith in his previous professions of reform. 
I have never been able to understand what 
pleasure can accrue from the spoliation of the 
190 



I STATE MY VIEWS ON TAXATION 

homes of birds, the beautiful musical creatures 
that contribute so largely toward making the 
world cheerful. One of the pleasantest re- 
collections of my boyhood is that in all that 
active period I never once killed or wounded 
a bird or robbed its nest. And I think that 
the kindest act I ever did — at least the one 
which I recall with the most satisfoction — 
was my release of a caged bird. A careless, 
heedless neighbor had caught and caged a 
redbird, and the mournful twittering of the 
poor creature as he fluttered incessantly be- 
hind the bars of his prison pained and 
haunted me. The redbird can never be rec- 
onciled to confinement; he is of the forest; 
the wildness of his peculiar note indicates 
the restlessness of his nature. So for nearly 
a year the melancholy twittering and the 
fluttering of that caged bird haunted me. 

One morning — it was in the gracious May 
time — I awoke early. The sun was just 
coming up and was kissing the tears from 
lovely Nature's face. The air was full of 
coolness and of sweet smells. Then, hear- 
ing the querulous note of the imprisoned 
bird upon the porch yonder, I determined to 
191 



THE HOUSE 

set the poor thing free. So I dressed myself 
and stole out into the graciousness of the 
early morning. To my last day 1 shall not 
forget the delight, the rapture, with which 
that released bird mounted from the door- 
way of his cage and sped away! 

One of the most treasured relics I have is 
a poem which my fiither wrote when 1 was 
a little boy. My father was a native of Maine, 
but for all that he was a man of sentiment 
and he had much literary taste, and ability, 
too. The poem which he gave me, and 
which I have always treasured, will (if I am 
not grievously in error) touch a responsive 
chord in many a human heart, for all human- 
ity looks back with tenderness to the time 
of youth. 

THE MORNING BIRD 

A bird sat in the maple tree 
And this was the song he sang to me : 
" O little boy, awake, arise ! 
The sun is high in the morning skies ; 
The brook 's a-play in the pasture lot 

And wondereth that the little boy 
It loveth dearly cometh not 
To share its turbulence and joy ; 
192 



1 STATE MY VIEWS ON TAXATION 

The grass hath kisses cool and sweet 
For truant little brown bare feet — 
So come, O child, awake, arise ! 
The sun is high in the morning skies ! " 

So from the yonder maple tree 
The bird kept singing unto me ; 
But that was very long ago — 
I did not think — I did not know — 
Else would I not have longer slept 

And dreamt the precious hours away ; 
Else would I from my bed iiave leapt 

To greet another happy day — 
A day, untouched of care and ruth, 
With sweet companionship of youth — 
The dear old friends whicii you and I 
Knew in the happy years gone by ! 

Still in the maple can be heard 
The music of the morning bird, 
And still the song is of the day 
That runneth o'er with childish play ; 
Still of each pleasant old-time place 

And of the old-time friends 1 knew — 
The pool where hid the furtive dace, 

The lot the brook went scampering through ; 
The mill, the lane, the bellflower tree 
That used to love to shelter me — 
And all those others 1 knew then, 
But which 1 cannot know again ! 

»93 



THE HOUSE 

Alas ! from yonder maple tree 
The morning bird sings not to me ; 
Else would his ghostly voice prolong 
An evening, not a morning, song 
And he would tell of each dear spot 

1 knew so well and cherished then, 
As all forgetting, not forgot 

By him who would be young again ! 

child, the voice from yonder tree 
Calleth to foil, and not to me ; 

So wake and know those friendships all 

1 would to God 1 could recall ! 



'94 



XIX 
OTHER PEOPLE'S DOGS 

WHEN I discovered one morning that 
my young sunflowers and my to- 
mato vines had been cut down during the 
night by some lawless depredator I was 
mightily incensed. I had not supposed that 
there was anybody so mean as to commit 
such a wanton destruction. The value of 
the property destroyed was not large ; 1 had 
paid but five cents apiece for the twenty to- 
mato vines, and the young, sunflowers were 
a present from Fadda Pierce. The intrin- 
sic value of these things w^as so small as 
to cut no figure in my mind, but having 
watched the graceful creatures wax large and 
comely from mere sprouts it was quite nat- 
ural that I should have a strong sentimental 
attachment for them. For the fruit of the 
tomato vine I care nothing, but I had with 

•95 



THE HOUSE 

much satisfaction pictured the enjoyment 
which Alice and the children would derive 
from the luscious tomatoes which I flattered 
myself were to ripen upon our own vines 
under the genial August sun. 

Moreover, I had already made up a list of 
the names of city friends to whom I intend- 
ed to send handsome specimens of these first 
fruits of my experiments in farming; the 
Reillys, the Lynches, the Chapins, the Max- 
wells, the Scotts, the Fayes, the Deweys, the 
Morrises, the Millards, the Larneds, the Flet- 
chers, the Ways — these and other fortu- 
tunate cronies were to be made recipients 
of my bounty in case the fruit held out. 1 
will say nothing of the pleasing future 1 de- 
picted for the sunflowers; the sunflower is a 
particular favorite of mine, presumably be- 
cause it is one of the very few flowers I am 
capable of identifying. 

My impulse, when beholding the tomato 
vines and sunflowers cut down in the inno- 
cence of youth, was to determine not to pur- 
sue gardening further. To this mood suc- 
ceeded a fit of anger, and I was so outraged 
by the destruction 1 beheld that I would 
196 



OTHER PEOPLE'S DOGS 

cheerfully have given any sum of money I 
could have borrowed of my neighbors for 
information leading to the apprehension of 
the perpetrator of this brutal wrong. 

As it was, I wrote out an offer of five dol- 
lars reward upon a sheet of letter paper and 
nailed it with four large wire nails to a maple 
tree in front of the place, where all passers- 
by could see and read it. Later in the day I 
went to tell Fadda Pierce of the trouble 
which had befallen me, and he consoled me 
with the assurance that the work of destruc- 
tion had been wrought — not by a human 
being, as I had surmised, but by cutworms, 
a kind of reptile that plies its nefarious trade 
between two days for no other apparent 
purpose than that of making gentlemen f^ir- 
mers like myself miserable. 

Fadda Pierce told me that Paris green was 
an effective antidote against these destruc- 
tive worms, and I have ordered a barrel of it 
from the city. I intend to spread a layer of 
this Paris green over all our flower and vege- 
table beds; the contrast thus presented to 
the dull, sere brown of our lawn will be 
very pleasing to the eye. In f-act, I am not 
197 



THE HOUSE 

sure that it would not be cheaper to color 
our whole lawn with Paris green than to at- 
tempt to revive it with water, which can be 
used with legal liberality only between the 
first of November and the first of May. 

By way of illustrating what a mockery our 
national Department of Agriculture is, I will 
say that I wrote to Secretaty Morton about 
the cutworms and asked that he suggest an 
antidote against the same. Although five 
weeks have elapsed since 1 dispatched that 
letter I have had no word of any kind from 
the Departrsent of Agriculture. I feel the 
slight all the more keenly because I am a 
personal acquaintance of Secretary Morton's, 
having been introduced to and shaken 
hands with him at the quadrennial conven- 
tion of the Western Academy of Science at 
Omaha in 1884. Prompt attention to my 
letter was due on the score of old friendship. 
The Secretary of Agriculture will recognize 
his error in offending me if ever he becomes 
a candidate for the presidency. Reuben Ba- 
ker never forgets an affront. 

But, though my sunflowers and my to- 
mato vines suffered as 1 have narrated, my 
1 98 



OTHER PEOPLE'S DOGS 

potatoes were doing finely. The potato 
patch is located in the back yard, near the 
poplar trees; it is in the shape of the Big 
Dipper, and 1 took the precaution to plant 
the potatoes in the new of the moon. The 
first planting never amounted to anything, 
for the reason that I peeled them and cut out 
the eyes before putting them in their hills. I 
learned subsequently that this was as fatal a 
course as it were possible to pursue. You 
must never peel potatoes or cut out their 
eyes if you want them to grow. I do not 
know why this is so, but it is. At any rate, 
the second crop 1 planted was a success. 
Every day 1 dug down into the hills to see 
how the potatoes were progressing, and I 
was thus enabled to keep track of the devel- 
opment of the tender fruit. 

My young friend Budd Taylor provided 
me with a dozen ears of seed popcorn which 
I planted in a warm, bright spot and which 
soon bristled up in splendid style. I think 
it likely that, but for the birds, I should have 
had a crop of popcorn sufficient to supply 
the Chicago market, for 1 never before saw 
anything like that corn for luxuriance and 
199 



THE HOUSE 

thrift. How the birds ever found out about 
it will doubtless remain a mystery. 

The birds 1 refer to proved to be black- 
birds, although for a time I mistook them 
for young crows. One morning 1 detected 
about three dozen of the poaching rogues 
stalking through the grass in the direction 
of my corn-patch, and, almost before 1 knew 
it, the feathered rascals had played havoc 
with my promising crop of popcorn. Then 
I remembered that I had read and seen pic- 
tures in books of scarecrows; so I dressed 
up a figure and set it up near the corn 
patch. It was really a very good counterfeit 
of a man, as indeed it ought to have been, 
for the clothing I used was far from ragged, 
and Alice had been intending to send it to a 
poor relative of hers in Nebraska. 

The night after I had set up this lay figure 
in the yard a policeman came along Claren- 
don Avenue for the first time in his profes- 
sional career. He espied the figure in the 
yard and at once mistook it for a thief who 
had come to steal our lawn hose. With a 
gallantry and with a devotion to duty which 
cannot be too highly commended, the in- 

200 



OTHER PEOPLE'S DOGS 

trepid policeman opened fire with his re- 
volver and put seven holes through the 
scarecrow before he discovered his mistake. 

The cannonading awakened Major Ryson, 
one of the nearest neighbors, and that dis-' 
creet gentleman immediately set his bull ter- 
rier loose. This sagacious but vindictive 
animal bore down upon the scene of action 
and treed the policeman the first thing. 
Having expended all his ammunition upon 
the lay figure, the policeman had no means of 
interchanging compliments with his assailant, 
and was therefore compelled to spend the 
night in a willow. Meanwhile the bull ter- 
rier encountered the scarecrow, and, mis- 
taking it for a human being, soon tore that 
unfortunate object into ten thousand pieces. 
Next day our lawn was literally strewn with 
straw and buttons and remnants of what 
had once been a very decent suit of clothes. 

This reference to Major Ryson's bull terrier 
reminds me of the visit which the Baylors' dog 
paid to our new premises. The Baylors' dog 
is a St. Bernard about a year old and weigh- 
ing one hundred and seventy-five pounds. 
Most of the time this amiable leviathan is 



THE HOUSE 

confined in the Baylors' back yard, a spot 
hardly large enough to admit of the levia- 
than's turning around in it. The evening to 
which I refer the Baylors made a pilgrimage 
to our new house for the purpose of ascer- 
taining whether we had put in a copper 
kitchen sink or a galvanized iron one. 1 
can't imagine what possessed them to do 
it, but they took the St. Bernard with them. 
The sense of freedom which this playful beast 
felt upon being let loose in our extensive 
yard proved wholly uncontrollable, and 
while the Baylors were investigating the 
sink question the amiable leviathan galli- 
vanted about the premises with that ele- 
phantine exuberance which is to be ex- 
pected of a St. Bernard one year old and 
weighing one hundred and seventy-five 
pounds. Adah (who has an eye to the beau- 
tiful) had planted a vast number of nastur- 
tiums and red geraniums, and under one of 
the oak trees had trained numerous graceful, 
dainty vines, which, as I recall, are known 
to horticultural amateurs as 'cobies. 

In the twinkling of an eye the Baylor 
leviathan swept these blossoming innocents 

203 



OTHER PEOPLE'S DOGS 

out of existence, and in other twinklings he 
wrought desolation among the peonies, the 
pansies, and other floral objects upon which 
the women folk had lavished a wealth of pa- 
tient care. A bull in a china-shop could 
hardly create the havoc which the Baylor 
pup, with his one hundred and seventy-five 
pounds of animal spirits, wrought ih our 
lawn. Next morning the lawn looked as 
if it had been honored with a nocturnal visi- 
tation from Burr Robbins' galaxy of domes- 
ticated wild beasts. 

Curiously enough, the Baylors thought it 
was very funny. I don't know why it is, 
but it can't be denied that it is a fact that those 
acts which in other people's pups strike us 
as strangely improper, become in our own 
pups the most natural and most mirth-pro- 
voking performances in the world. I recall 
the anger with which neighbor Baylor drove 
neighbor Macleod's mastiff off his porch one 
evening because that mastiff attempted to 
make his way through the screen door be- 
hind which the family cat was visible. In 
this instance the Macleod mastiff was simply 
following the predominating instinct of the 

303 



THE HOUSE 

canine kind, and neighbor Baylor hated the 
unreasonable beast for it. Yet I '11 warrant 
me that while his own lubberly pup was 
prancing around over our flower beds neigh- 
bor Baylor regarded the performance as the 
most cunning and most charming divertise- 
ment in the world. 

It is much the same way with children. 
If I were put upon oath, I should have to ad- 
mit that the very same antics which I regard 
as most seemly (not to say fliscinating) in my 
own pretty little darlings I do not approve 
of at all when I see them attempted by the 
awkward, homely children of my neigh- 
bors. 



204 



XX 
1 ACQUIRE POISON AND EXPERIENCE 

THERE is no telling to what unparalleled 
extent I should have carried my agri- 
cultural work but for a happening which in- 
terrupted my career in that direction and 
temporarily invalidated me for the perform- 
ance of all manual labor. To make short of 
a long and painful story, I will tell you at 
once that in the very midst of my agricultu- 
ral triumphs I was rudely awakened to a 
realization of the fact that I had been badly 
poisoned by ivy. The luxuriant growth in 
one part of our lawn which in my innocence 
I had mistaken for infant oak trees and had 
nurtured with great assiduity proved to be 
the poison vine which is shunned alike of 
knowing man and beast. 

The truth about this insiduous plant was 
not revealed to me until after the harm was 
done. I awoke one night to find my hands 
205 



THE HOUSE 

and wrists afflicted with so pestiferous an 
itching that it verily seemed to me as if the 
points often thousand thousand hot needles 
were being thrust into my cuticle. There 
are no words capable of expressing how 
torturesomethis affliction is; to my physical 
suffering there was added a distinct mental 
disquietude arising from a sense of injustice 
that nature, supposed to be so benignant to 
her friends, should have punished me so 
grievously for having sought to cultivate and 
foster her arts. 

I was shocked, too, to discover that my 
misfortune awakened no feeling of sym- 
pathy in others; nay, my neighbors seemed 
to regard it rather as a joke that I, a scien- 
tist of no mean ability (if 1 do say it myself), 
should have fallen victim to the commonest 
and most vicious of all destroyers of human 
happiness. The amount of badinage, sar- 
casm, and irony indulged in by these unfeel- 
ing folk at the expense of " Farmer" Baker 
(as they now jocosely dubbed me) would 
fill a royal octavo volume. I assure you that 
I regarded this species of humor as imperti- 
nent to the degree of atrocity. 
206 



1 ACQUIRE POISON AND HXPERIENCH 

My family physician, Dr. Hodges, pre- 
scribed several vials of pellets which bore a 
striking resemblance to one another, but 
whose virtues 1 was solemnly assured de- 
pended wholly upon my strict observance 
of the ordo of their administration internally, 
which ordo may have been simple and clear 
enough to Dr. Hodges, but was to me as 
intricate and complicated as a Bradshaw 
railway guide. Furthermore, having ascer- 
tained by artful inquiry what viands and 
beverages I particularly liked. Dr. Hodges 
strictly forbade my indulgence in them, and 
such articles of food and drink as I was partic- 
ularly averse to he recommended for my diet. 

Meanwhile I was meeting constantly with 
people who had been afflicted with ivy pois- 
oning, and these kind, cheery souls en- 
couraged me with recitals of their expe- 
riences. I was told that it took seven years 
for ivy poison to get out of the system ; that 
every year during the ivy season (whatever 
that may mean) there would be a recurrence 
of this pestiferous eruption, sometimes in 
one part of the body, sometimes in another, 
<ind not unfrequently upon the whole sur- 
207 



THE HOUSE 

face. There were, of course, numerous 
nostrums warranted to allay the fiery ting- 
ling and maddening stinging of the malady, 
and, as I cheerfully adopted every sugges- 
tion that came to my ears, I was presently 
stocked up with enough salves and solutions 
to fill an apothecary-shop, and my associates 
began to complain that I was as redolent of 
odors as a chemical laboratory. Naturally 
enough, therefore, I became morbid and de- 
spondent, and began to regard myself as a 
mercilessly afflicted and shunned thing. 

But amid all this trouble there came to 
me one big, bright ray of satisfaction. I re- 
membered that, when Alice took out a life 
policy with neighbor Treese Smith, 1 also 
took out an accident policy with the same 
gentleman in the Wabash Mutual Internecine 
Association of Indiana. There was, as you 
can well understand, a heap of consolation in 
the thought that no matter how little or how 
much or how long 1 suffered, the Wabash 
concern would have to pay for it. As 1 re- 
collected, the insurance was fifty dollars a 
week during incapacity for work. If, there- 
fore, the ivy poison remained in my system 
2o8 



I ACQUIRE POISON AND EXPERIENCE 

seven years, the amount of insurance due 
me would be — let me see: 

Seven years — three hundred and sixty- 
four weeks. 

Three hundred and sixty-four weeks at 
fifty dollars per week — eighteen thousand 
two hundred dollars. 

This was, indeed, a considerable sum of 
money ! I began to understand that, viewed 
from a purely business standpoint, my afflic- 
tion might become financially profitable. It 
even occurred to me that in case the Wabash 
company paid promptly, and I got used to 
the tearing ebullitions of the ivy poison, I 
might contrive to get a renewal of the mal- 
ady at the end of the first seven years. I 
wondered that, with this opportunity of get- 
ting rich cum otio et cum dignitate, there 
were so many poor people in the world; 
however, I mentally resolved not to discover 
my shrewd plan to anybody else. 

When I called upon neighbor Treese Smith 
I was prudent enough to let him know that 
I probably had the worst case of ivy poison- 
ing ever heard of, and with more than com- 
mon pride I exhibited to him my hands and 
209 



THE HOUSE 

wrists in confirmation of my claims. Mr. 
Smith (whom you already know as a man 
of tender feelings and broad sympathies) ex- 
pressed himself as being very sorry for me, 
and he asked me if I had tried certain reme- 
dies, which he named. 

As it was another kind of remedy 1 was 
after, 1 adroitly led the conversation up to 
the proper point, and then 1 intimated that 
it would not harrow up my feelings if I were 
tendered a payment on account of my acci- 
dent policy in the Wabash Mutual Internecine 
Association of Indiana. I liked Smith, and 
1 felt that 1 ought to be candid with him. I 
told him that it was pretty generally agreed 
by the medical profession that when a per- 
son once got a dose of poison ivy it remained 
in his system for seven years, during which 
period it worked its baleful offices off and on 
with varying malignance. 1 recognized the 
fact that I had a valid claim on the Wabash 
company for fifty dollars a week for seven 
years; that the total amount of money due 
or paid me by said company at the end of the 
natural life of the ivy poison would be a trifle 
over eighteen thousand dollars. 1 told Mr. 



I ACQUIRE POISON AND EXPERIENCE 

Smith that I was not disposed to take advan- 
tage of or to be too hard on the Wabash com- 
pany, and that, being naturally of a conser- 
vative disposition, I was willing to compro- 
mise this matter for — say — well — ten 
thousand dollars, and cancel the policy. 

Mr. Smith answered me in the tone and 
with the manner of one who is seeking to 
break bad news gradually and gently to an- 
other. 

**' It is. painfully clear to me," said the kind, 
sympathetic man, "that you have not read 
the conditions upon which your accident 
policy is issued to you. I fear that when you 
come to examine it more carefully you will 
learn that in this case you have no claims 
upon our company — or, perhaps, I should 
say the company, since I am merely its agent 
and have nothing to do with the framing of 
its contracts." 

" I have the instrument v/ith me," said I, 
producing the policy. " I have read it care- 
fully and understand it fully. It is a simple, 
short, straightforward document, and the 
type is so big and clear that even a child could 
read it." 



THE HOUSE 

"Alas," said Mr. Smith, with a sigh, *'I 
fear you have not read the conditions; you 
will find them on the other side of the sheet, 
printed in small type." 

I turned the page, and surely enough there 
were a number of paragraphs under the title 
of "The Conditions"; they were printed in 
small type and pale-blue ink. 

" But what have 'conditions' to do with 
this case ? " I asked. " 1 got insured in the 
Wabash Mutual Internecine company against 
accident, and here I 've had an accident! Ivy 
poison is as severe an accident as can happen 
to any animal, except, perhaps, an alligator 
or a rhinoceros, and I think 1 'm entitled to 
my money." 

"You are quite right from your stand- 
point," said Mr. Smith, "but it is not the 
correct standpoint. You are insured (as you 
will see by referring to your policy) as an A 
No. I risk. Turn to the conditions, and you 
willobservethat our ANo. i risks are insured 
against accident by lightning only. If, now, 
you had been struck by lightning instead of 
by ivy, and if the subtle electric fluid had 
impaired your physical economy, or imparted 



I ACQUIRE POISON AND EXPERIENCE 

to your veins any noxious rheum or any 
venom wherefrom either temporary or per- 
manent harm or disquietude accrued to you, 
then you would have a legal and just claim 
against our — I mean the company." 

''But 1 supposed I v/as insured against 
every kind of accident," said I. "When it 
comes to getting pay for an accident, a dis- 
location of a toe is quite as desirable, in my 
opinion, as a broken neck." 

"Ah, but insurance companies, must dif- 
ferentiate," said Mr. Smith. "There are so 
many kinds of accidents that it is abso- 
lutely necessary to have grades and classes 
and differences and distinctions. You are 
insured against lightning: you belong to A 
No. I. If you were insured against a broken 
leg you would be in X No. 2, or against a 
sprained wrist in H No. 3. My recollection 
is that our policies of insurance against poison 
ivy are written in (XNo. 4, but I am not 
positive. If, however, you care to profit by 
this annoying experience and desire to insure 
against ivy poison, 1 will look the matter up 
the first thing to-morrow and write you out 
a policy at once. In your case the policy 
213 



THE HOUSE 

should be made out for a period of fourteen 
years, since your present dose of poison will 
not lose its efficacy for seven years, and that 
will render insurance taken after the fact 
inoperative." 

There was a heavy thunder shower the 
next day, and I stood out in it all the time 
in the hope of getting a chance to claim re- 
muneration from the Wabash Mutual Inter- 
necine Association. But the lightning dodged 
me as if I had been a sacred and charmed 
object. I made up my mind that it was folly 
to try to get even with the insurance concern, 
and since a farming career was now closed 
against me, I determined to devote my spare 
time to watching the progress of affairs inside 
our new house and to cooperate with Alice 
and Adah and our feminine neighbors in 
their herculean task of ''having things as 
they should be." 



214 



XXI 
WITH PLUMBERS AND PAINTERS 

IT did not take me long to find out that, 
in the treatment of the interior of the new 
house, Alice had fallen a victim to the in- 
fluence of the Denslow-Baylor-Maria schools. 
I was not much surprised b\^ this discovery, 
for I had known for some time that Alice 
regarded the Denslows and the Baylors as 
people of rare taste, and it was quite natural 
(as every unprejudiced person will allow) 
that, associating with Adah continually and 
being bound to her by ties of consanguinity, 
Alice should be susceptible to Adah's horta- 
tions, incitements, impulsations, and instiga- 
tions. 

At any rate, I found that our new house 
was to be a conspicuous intermingling and 
interblending of the Denslow, Baylor, and 
Maria styles of architecture. The big front 

2IS 



THE HOUSE 

room downstairs, the library, was distinctly 
Denslowish, and so was the big front room 
up-stairs, as well as the butler's pantry and 
the reception-room. The Baylor influence 
manifested itself in the spare bedroom and 
the dining-room, and the Maria influence 
(thanks to Adah) was clearly exhibited in 
the front and side porches, in my bedroom, 
and in the several hallways. Alice insisted 
that the house was to be strictly old colonial 
and also requested me to speak of it as such 
in the presence of visitors, particulary in the 
hearing of her relatives from the country 
when they came into the city next Septem- 
ber to do their winter buying. 

In my fancy I can already picture the dear 
girl putting on airs with those guileless rural 
folk who know no more about the architec- 
tural and the decorative arts than an unclouted 
Patagonian knows of the four houses of the 
Jesuitical order. Nor do I know much about 
those things, and I am glad that I do not, for 
if I had devoted my early years of study to 
plinths, architraves, columns, dados, friezes, 
pediments, sconces, wainscots, cornices, 
capitals, entablatures, and such like, how 
216 



WITH PLUMBERS AND PAINTERS 

could I have originated my theory of star- 
drift and hgw would humanity have been 
enlightened upon the all-important subjects 
of the asteroids, the satellites of the star 
Gamma in Scorpio, the atmosphere on the 
other side of the moon, the depth of the 
Martian bottle-neck seas, the probability of 
the existence of natural gas wells in Jupiter, 
etc., etc. ? If I had been a Linnaeus or a 
Buffon instead of Reuben Baker, I should 
have never suffered myself to fall an innocent 
victim to poison ivy — yes, that is true, but 
at the same time my now famous theory of 
double stars and my equally famous theory 
as to the several elements in comets' tails 
would have been denied to the world. No 
one man can combine within himself all hu- 
man genius; in all modesty I declare myself 
satisfied with being simply Reuben Baker. 

While I devoted my attention to out-of- 
door affairs — by which I mean care of the 
lawn, of the flower-beds, and of the vegetable 
patches — 1 had a comparatively tranquil ex- 
istence. Having transferred the base of my 
operations (or perhaps I should say my ob- 
servations) indoors, I found numerous dis- 
217 



THE HOUSE 

agreements and misunderstandings to distract 
me. I was not long in finding out that there 
were two frictions (so to speak) in charge of 
the department of the interior. Parties of the 
first part were Alice and all our feminine 
neighbors; party of the second part was 
Uncle Si. 

You see, there had never been anything 
more explicit than a verbal understanding 
between Uncle Si and Alice; the two had 
talked the matter all over at the start, and 
they agreed upon every theory so nicely that 
I do not wonder they decided that a written 
contract was not necessary. Uncle Si did 
some figuring which resulted in his saying 
that he would reconstruct the old house and 
build an addition for the even sum of two 
thousand dollars. Very few specifications 
were made, but there was a pretty clear 
verbal understanding reached, and the con- 
sequence was as distinct a misunderstanding 
as the work progressed. Most of the trouble 
was over the detail of hardwood. Alice was 
sure that Uncle Si had agreed to put in hard- 
wood floors and trimmings throughout ; 
Uncle Si expostulated that he had never 



WITH PLUMBERS AND PAINTERS 

thought of SO preposterous a project, since it 
would have bankrupted him as sure as his 
name was Silas Plum. 

The result was that Alice never went near 
the new house that she did not groan and 
moan and declare that Georgia pine was 
simply the horridest wood in all the world, 
while, upon the other hand, Uncle Si speedily 
came to regard Alice as an arch enemy who 
was seeking to trick and impoverish him. 
The neighbors sided with Alice, of course. 
They freely expressed the conviction that 
Uncle Si and all other contractors would bear 
constant watching. It is perhaps needless 
for me to add that Uncle Si regarded all 
neighbors as impertinent and mischievous 
intermeddlers. 

I will confess that of all the workmen 
about the place the plumbers interested me 
most. They came late and quit early, and 
much of the intervening time was spent in 
asking one another questions and in ordering 
one another about. No tool was at hand 
when it was required. If the pliers were 
needed the whole gang of plumbers stopped 
work to hunt for the missing instrument, 

2IQ 



THE HOUSE 

which was sometimes found in one remote 
spot and sometimes in another — never 
where it should have been. I have a theory 
that for reasons best known to themselves 
plumbers make a practice of mislaying and 
losing their tools. 

I supposed that having once begun their 
work these plumbers would push it to com- 
pletion. I never undertake anything that I 
do not keep at it until it is done and finished, 
and I think that this rule obtains among most 
of the professions and trades. Plumbers 
seem, however, to be a privileged class. 
They come to your premises and spend an 
hour or two examining what is to be done; 
then they go away. When they get ready 
to come back they return — this time with 
a miniature furnace and whatever tools they 
do not require. Then they go away to 
bring the tools they need, leaving the tools 
they do not require for a pretext for another 
trip. Then they take turns at suggesting 
how the proposed work should be done, 
and one after another they get down upon 
their knees and peer into closets and holes 
and under floors and into dark places, after 



WITH PLUMBERS AND PAINTERS 

which some of them go back to the "shop," 
for more things, while the others either sit 
around doing nothing or busy themselves at 
losing and mislaying the tools they have al- 
ready at hand. 

Uncle Si, who is an authority on the sub- 
ject, says that there never was a plumber 
who died of overwork or in the poorhouse. 
He tells me that he once knew of a plumber 
named Bilkins who fell dead of heart disease 
one day when he discovered that he had 
worked four minutes overtime. 

The boss painter was another individual 
who excited my astonishment. I never 
knew another man so fertile in the art of 
prevarication. Mr. Krome would rather lie 
than eat — at any rate, he would rather lie 
than paint. He never neglected to come 
over twice a day and take a long and careful 
survey of the house. 

*' I reckon you 're about ready for us, eh ? " 
he 'd ask. 

''We 're waiting on you," Uncle Si would 

say. 

" Then 1 '11 have to put my gang at work 
in the mornin'," he would answer. This 



THE HOUSE 

performance was repeated again and again, 
but the ''gang "we looked for did not 
come. I remonstrated against this seeming 
neglect, but Mr. Krome blandly assured me 
that when his men did once get to work 
they would push the job with incredible 
speed. 1 knew he was a liar, yet 1 always 
believed the fellow. 

We gave him the glazing to do. We even 
accommodated him to the extent of sendinQ- 
the window frames to his shop instead of 
making him haul them himself. We did 
this out of no special regard for Mr. Krome, 
for, aside from pure selfish considerations, 
Mr. Krome is no more to us than we are to 
Hecuba; but we desired to facilitate him in 
the work he had engaged to do for us. 

After the window frames had been at the 
fellow's shop a fortnight, I began to suggest 
that their return would gratify me to the de- 
gree of rapture. Mr. Krome put us off with 
one excuse and another (all equally plausible) 
and presently a month had rolled by. Like 
the man in the fable who tried brickbats 
when kind words were no longer of avail, I 
threatened to turn the work of ,i?lazin2f over 



WITH PLUMBERS AND PAINTERS 

to another glazier who was not so busy 
with his lying as to prevent him from at- 
tending to the duties of his legitimate trade. 
This served as a mild remedy, for the win- 
dow frames presently began to arrive one 
at a time, and I actually felt like calling upon 
our pastor for a special service of praise and 
thanksgiving when finally those windows 
were all in place. 

The one thing that Alice, the neighbors, 
Uncle Si, and I were amicably agreed upon 
was the opinion that Mr. Krome, for a boss 
painter, was not worth the powder to blow 
him off the face of the earth. I felt tempted 
to tell him so, but he was at all times so 
amiable and so chatty that I really could not 
find the heart to mention a matter likely to 
interrupt the flow of his good nature. The 
chances are that Mr. Krome entertained 
much the same opinion of Uncle Si that 
Uncle Si had of Mr. Krome. My somewhat 
intimate association with workingmen for 
the last three months enables me to say that, 
so far as I have been able to observe, work- 
ingmen often have a precious poor opinion 
of one another. The plumbers talk of the 



THE HOUSE 

carpenters as lazy and shiftless, the painters 
speak ill of the plumbers, the carpenters re- 
gard the tinners with derision, and so it goes 
through the whole category. 

Now that 1 come to think of it, I am com- 
pelled to admit that this practice of setting a 
low estimate upon the endeavors and re- 
sponsibilities of others is not restricted to the 
workingman's class. 1 blush to recall how 
often I myself have envied the apparent ease 
with which Belville Rock and Bobbett Doller 
stem the tide of human affairs while I labor 
on and on, barely eking out a subsistence. 
So far as I can see, they toil not, neither do 
they spin. 

The chances are, on the other hand, that 
both Belville Rock and Colonel Doller re- 
gard me as the luckiest of lazy dogs, who 
has but to lie on his back and look at sun, 
moon, and stars to earn both fame and for- 
tune. The fiirmer's candid conviction is 
that the city man is a fellow who does no- 
thing and gets rich at it ; the urban resident 
is quite as positive that the farmer habitually 
loafs around and lets God do the rest. The 
truth of this whole matter is that all human- 



WITH PLUMBERS AND PAINTERS 

ily is prone to discontentment of that kind 
which not only denies happiness to oneself 
but also begrudges others the happiness they 
achieve. 

But of this frailty I shall speak no further; 
indeed, I do not understand how I happened 
to be led into this line of discourse, for it is 
quite at a tangent with the subject I had in 
mind — namely, the butler's pantry. 



225 



XXII 
THE BUTLER'S PANTRY 

IN the good old days, which were, of 
course, the days when you and I were 
boys and girls together at Biddeford, Me., 
our civilization knew nothing of that miser- 
able invention which is now foisted upon 
the modern house under the name of butler's 
pantry. In those good old days we used to 
have pantries and china closets and butteries 
and all that sort of thing, and people were 
contented. 

At the present time, however, civilization 
is so curiously possessed of a desire to ape 
the customs of European society that every 
kind of innovation is seized upon with en- 
thusiasm and without any apparent regard 
for the derision and contempt to which it ren- 
ders us liable. In my opinion (which is 



THE BUTLER'S PANTRY 

sustained by such an eminent authority as 
Lawyer Miles) the butler's pantry without 
,the butler is as absurd a contrivance as a car- 
riage without a horse or a purse without gold 
or silver to put therein. Yet there is not, I 
presume to say, a tenement house in all this 
city that has not its butler's pantry; without 
this adjunct no home is considered complete, 
and it makes no difference whether ''the lady 
of the house " does her own work or is able 
to employ female servants, the butler's pantry 
is a sine qua non. 

1 told Alice that I regarded a butler's pantry 
much in the light of a last year's bird's nest, 
and I added that since we were going to have 
a butler's pantry minus the butler I supposed 
the next move would be in the direction of a 
wine cellar minus the wine. But my humor 
is wholly lost upon Alice; since she began 
training with other householders that superior 
woman has exhibited a strange indifference 
to my suggestions and counsel. 

I mentioned Lawyer Miles a moment ago. 
This gives me the opportunity of saying that 
my sympathies have gone out with enthusi- 
asm toward that gifted man ever since I heard 
227 



THE HOUSE 

him remark, not very long ago, that he liked 
to have things cluttered up in his house. I 
am not able to detlne the compound " clut- 
tered-up," but it conveys to my mind a 
meaning that is perfectly clear, and it suggests 
conditions which are pleasing to me. I, too, 
like to have things cluttered up. The most 
dreadful day in the week is, to my thinking, 
Friday — not because we invariably have 
fried fish upon that day, but because it is upon 
Friday that a vandal hired girl appears in my 
study and, under the direction of my wife, 
proceeds to "put things in shape." Alice 
insists that I am not orderly or methodical, 
yet amid all the so-called disorder of my study 
I can at any moment lay my hands upon any 
chart or map or book or paper 1 require, pro- 
vided everything is left just where I drop it. 
My doctrine about such things is that books 
and charts and papers were made for use and 
are therefore of the greatest utility when 
most available. When I am at work I like 
my tools around me; if they are not handy, 
my work is interrupted, and an interruption 
often breaks the train of thought and renders 
impotent or at least mediocre an endeavor 
228 



THE BUTLER'S PANTRY 

which elsewise would be excellent. In their 
ambition to "put things in shape," and to 
give me an object lesson in order and method, 
Alice and her vandal hired girl hide my tools 
of trade, disposing of my books, papers, and 
pens, and even of my slippers, in such inge- 
nious wise as to keep me busy for hours 
finding these necessities and replacing them 
where they will be available, 

I thought that Alice and her mercenary 
were the only women in the world addicted 
to this weekly practice, but from what Lawyer 
Miles and other married men tell me I gather 
that there are other wives in the world quite 
as possessed of the seven devils of order and 
method as Alice is. 

To return to that other matter: Alice has 
hinted to me that she intends to store a great 
deal of my own porcelain and pottery away 
in the butler's pantry. I had hoped that 
when we got into the new house we should 
have plenty of space for displaying the plat- 
ters, plates, bowls, teapots, etc., etc., to 
which age has added a special charm, and the 
collection of which has involved the expen- 
diture of much time and money upon my part. 



THE HOUSE 

I am convinced, however, that Alice in- 
tends to hide all these beautiful old speci- 
mens away; the butler's pantry is evidently 
for this purpose. I have not questioned 
Alice about it, but (to use Uncle Si's flivorite 
expression) ''it 's dollars to doughnuts" that 
Alice is figuring on displaying her sixty-dol- 
lar set of new porcelain in the new glass 
cabinet in the dining-room, v/hile my rare 
antiques — among them the blue platter, 
which was sent me from New Orleans, and 
which belonged originally to the pirate La- 
fitte — are relegated to the dim mysterious 
shelves of the butler's pantry, where dust 
will obscure them and spiders make them 
their favorite romping grounds. 1 intend to 
ask Lawyer Miles what he would do under 
like circumstances. 

There is a sink in the butler's pantry, but 
it is wholly superfluous. 1 am told that this 
adjunct is useful in washing such dishes and 
glassware as are too precious to be sent to 
the kitchen. All this sounds very fine, but 
the practice is to whew the tableware of all 
kinds into the kitchen, whether there be a 
sink in the butler's pantry or not. My grand- 
230 



THE BUTLER'S PANTRY 

mother (and my mother, too) never suffered 
a servant to wash the fine porcelain or the 
cut glass; that responsible task was always 
reserved for the housewife herself, and the 
result was that no porcelain was chipped 
and no cut glass cracked. They sent me 
an old willow teapot from Biddeford, and it 
had n't been with us three weeks before our 
Celtic cook marred its symmetry by chip- 
ping off its venerable nozzle. 

The only reason why so many charming 
bits of china have come down to us from 
the last century is that our' grandmothers 
and our mothers cared for these things and 
protected them from rough usage. But, bless 
your soul! do you suppose Alice could be 
induced to bare her arms and apply herself 
to the task of washing a stack of antique 
porcelain or a row of cut-glass tumblers ? 
No, not for the entire wealth of Wedge- 
wood or the combined output of Dresden 
and of Sevres! 

Mrs. Baylor tells me that I am doing the 

butler's pantry a grave injustice ; that the 

servants will use it, and that it will prove a 

great convenience. I do not wish to appear 

231 



THE HOUSE 

unreasonable and I am willing to concede 
that the servants will utilize the pantry and 
its death-dealing sink. It is very probable 
that under their auspices the slaughter of 
china and of glassware will be continued ; it 
moots not to the average hired-girl whether 
the sink be in the kitchen or the butler's pan- 
try, upon the housetop or in the bowels of the 
earth ; the work of destruction goes on at four 
dollars a week and every Thursday out. 

It was during the pantry agitation that 
Mr. Patrick Devoe came into our lives. He 
approached us one sweltering afternoon and 
introduced himself with all the urbanity of 
a native of Glanmire, County Cork. He 
praised our house and our premises and my 
wife and our children. We wondered what 
he was driving at, but he didn't keep us in 
suspense very long, for he was, as he as- 
sured us, a business man from the word 
"go." He was, it appeared, the proprietor 
of a street-sprinkling cart, and the object of 
his call upon us was to crave the boon of 
sprinkling Clarendon Avenue in front of our 
place at the merely nominal price often cents 
a day. 

233 



THE BUTLER'S PANTRY 

Mr. Devoe could hardly have called at a 
time more favorable to his interests. The 
day was, as 1 have already intimated, op- 
pressively hot: there was a stiff wind from 
the south and the dust rolled up the avenue 
in clouds. Mr. Devoe represented to us 
that the other people in the neighborhood 
had contracted for his services and our repu- 
tation belied us if we were unwilling to se- 
cure at a paltry financial outlay what would 
contribute to our comfort and health. This 
persuasive gentleman assured us that, under 
the benign influence of his sprinkling cart, 
Clarendon Avenue would presently become 
one of the most popular of suburban drive- 
ways. Hither would equipages come from 
every quarter, and the thoroughf^ire even- 
tually would be famed as the coolest, shadi- 
est, and most fashionable in Chicago. 

Furthermore Mr. Devoe represented that 
the trees, shrubbery, and grass of our premises 
would be directly benefited by his sprinkling 
cart; the gracious flood of water, distributed 
twice a day by his itinerant cart, would not 
only lay the dust of the highway, but also per- 
meate and circulate through the contiguous 
233 



THE HOUSE 

soil, bearing refreshment and health to tree, 
plant, and flower alike. The vigor of vege- 
tation meant much to humanity; by this 
means an abundance of ozone would be 
supplied to the circumambient atmosphere, 
insuring healthful sleep and general reinvig- 
oration to man, woman, and child. 

Mr. Devoe's presentation of the facts and 
possibilities was so convincing that both 
Alice and I recognized the propriety of secur- 
ing his services. The sum of ten cents per 
diem seemed very trifling; it was not until 
after Mr. Devoe had departed with our con- 
tract in his pocket that we began to realize 
that, however insignificant ten cents per 
diem might be, seventy cents per week was 
not to be sneezed at, while twenty-one dol- 
lars for the season was simply a gross ex- 
travagance. 1 was in favor of recalling and 
annulling our contract with Mr. Devoe, but 
Alice insisted that we should keep strictly in 
line with the other neighbors, doing nothing 
likely to stigmatize us either as mean or as 
unfashionable. 

A day or two after this incident a ruffianly 
looking fellow called on us to "make ar- 
234 



THE BUTLER'S PANTRY 

rangements," as he said, about hauling away 
our garbage when we got moved into our 
new house. I told the fellow that the city 
sent a garbage wagon around every week to 
remove the garbage free of cost. To this the 
fellow replied that the city did its work care- 
lessly, that the wagon was invariably over- 
loaded, and that no reliance could be placed 
upon the garbage boxes being emptied if 
that responsible duty were intrusted to the 
city employes. 

The fellow seemed to know what he was 
talking about, and his representations were 
so fair that finally I agreed to pay him twenty- 
five cents a week for hauling the garbage 
away. That evening I heard from Mr. Bay- 
lor that the scheme was a vulgar bit of 
blackmail : that the fellow was driver for one 
of the city wagons and made a practice of 
extorting fees from householders for doing 
work which he was already paid to do. I 
felt grievously outraged and 1 threatened to 
report this infamy to the municipal authori- 
ties. But Mr. Baylor and other friends as- 
sured me that these infiimous practices of 
blackmail were encouraged at the City Hall, 

235 



THE HOUSE 

and that I would simply be laughed at if I 
ventured to complain. 

It was about this time, too, that I paid a 
man four dollars to clean out the catch basin 
in the rear of our premises. The man told 
me that the catch basin was ''reeking with 
the germs of disease." I did n't see how 
that could well be, since the sewer had not 
been laid six weeks. However, the man in- 
sisted, and he talked so portentously of bac- 
teria and bacilli and morbiferous microbes 
that finally in a terror of apprehension I 
gave him four dollars and bade him do his 
saving work and do it quickly. 

When the neighbors heard of this incident 
they unanimously pronounced me a fool, 
accompanying that opprobrious stigmatiza- 
tion with an epithet which my religious con- 
victions prohibit me from recording. 



236 



XXIII 
ALICE'S NIGHT WATCHMAN 

FROM what I have already told you it is 
likely that you have gathered that Alice 
and I had good reason to conclude that be- 
ing a householder was by no means as cheap 
an enjoyment as could be conceived of. We 
recalled the words of the sagacious and pru- 
dent Mr. Denslow. "When you get a 
place of your own," said that wise man, 
''you will find that there will be a thousand 
annoying little demands for your money 
where now there is one." Our other friend, 
Mr. Black, had expressed the same idea 
when he told us that " a house-owner never 
gets through paying out." If Alice and I 
had had any thought upon the matter at all 
it was to the effect that when we had a home 
of our own we got rid forever of the mon- 
strous bugaboo of house-rent at sixty dol- 
237 



THE HOUSE 

lars a month. We supposed that all our 
spare time could be devoted to counting 
the money we were going to save by get- 
ting out of a grasping, avaricious landlord's 
clutches. Experience is a severe teacher; 
Alice and I have found out a great many 
things since we began to have direct deal- 
ings with builders, masons, plumbers, pain- 
ters et id omne genus, as well as with 
sprinklers, day laborers, landscape gardeners, 
fruit-tree peddlers, lightning-rod agents, and 
others of that ilk. 

We duly became aware that we were los- 
ing a good deal at the hands of nocturnal 
depredators. Our flower beds were de- 
spoiled with amazing regularity ; the broken 
lath and old lumber which had been piled 
up in the back yard, and which Alice intend- 
ed to use eventually for kindling, disappeared 
mysteriously, and the carpenters reported 
finding evidences every morning that some 
person or persons had been tramping through 
the house the night before. 

We were all at once possessed of the 
paralyzing fear that this nocturnal trespasser, 
or these nocturnal trespassers, might set our 
238 



ALICE'S NIGHT WATCHMAN 

house on fire. The floors were strewn with 
shavings; a spark would precipitate a con- 
flagration, and the old Schmittheimer place 
would burn like so much tinder. I read 
over the fire-insurance policies which we had 
taken out with our genial friends, Doller, 
Jeems, and Teddy, and I found out that the 
companies represented by those gentlemen 
were not responsible for losses upon unoc- 
cupied premises, or for losses resulting from 
incendiarism. It occurred to me that it would 
be wise to invite the police to keep an eye 
on the place at night, but this plan seemed 
impracticable for the reason that I wanted to 
keep the lawn-sprinklers running all night 
in defiance of the ordinance, and this could 
not be done if the police were to be mousing 
about the premises. 

While 1 was still worrying over this dis- 
tressing problem one of the carpenters came 
to me with a harrowing tale about a tramp 
whom he had caught sleeping in the barn. 
This tramp had gained access to the barn by 
means of a window. He quietly removed 
the sash, after breaking the panes of glass, 
and crawled in. The carpenter caught the 
239 



THE HOUSE 

impudent rogue early next morning in fla- 
grante delicto — that is to say, found him 
snoozing upon a mattress which Alice had 
stored away in the barn for safe-keeping. 
An argument ensued, but the tramp finally 
beat a retreat. 

Upon the evening of that same day the 
carpenter remained after working hours to 
see whether the tramp would come back for 
another night's lodging in the nice, warm 
barn on that nice, clean mattress. Surely 
enough, as evening shadows fell the tramp 
made his reappearance and sought to effect 
an entrance to the barn. Thereupon the 
belligerent carpenter emerged from his hiding 
and bade the trespasser be gone. The tramp 
complied with this demand, but not until he 
had signified his intention of returning later 
at night for the purpose of squaring accounts 
with the carpenter. 

This dark threat filled the carpenter with 
gloomy forebodings and he hastened to 
Alice and me for advice. Of course we as- 
sured him that we would support him in 
any line of action he would take, and we 
promised to pay him one dollar if he would 
240 



ALICE'S NIGHT WATCHMAN 

Stay and guard the premises that night. 
The carpenter was not insensible to the 
soothing influences of lucre, and he consent- 
ed to watch and defend our property, pro- 
vided we furnished him with a weapon of 
one kind or another, for he had a conviction 
that the tramp fully intended to come back 
that very night to cut his heart out. 

My acquaintance with weapons is limited 
to that circle which includes my collection 
of antique armor and several old flintlocks 
picked up at different times in New England 
and in the South. I confessed to the car- 
penter that I had in the house nothing 
suited to his bellicose purposes, unless he 
was willing to put up with a mediaeval battle 
axe or a Queen Anne musket. The carpenter 
seemed disinclined to place any reliance upon 
these means of defence, and he suggested 
that perhaps 1 might borrow a pistol of some 
one of the neighbors. I had not thought of 
that before ; the idea impressed me fiworably, 
and I proceeded to act upon it. It was no 
easy task, however, finding what I wanted. 
At the Denslows an axe was the only weapon 
to be had, and at the Baylors', the Crowes', 
241 



THE HOUSE 

the Sissons', and the Ewings' I found that 
the spears had been beaten into plowshares 
and the swords into pruning-hooks. 1 felt 
that it would be folly to apply at the Tilt- 
mans', for Jack Tihman is the mildest man 
in seven States, and he is descended from a 
line of Quakers religiously opposed to war 
and strife. However, meeting with Tilt- 
man, I ventured to confide to him the di- 
lemma 1 was in, and 1 was surprised when he 
told me that he could provide me with any 
kind or size of revolver I wanted. Presently 
he brought out of his house a machine which, 
had he not assured me to the contrary, 1 
should at first sight have mistaken for a one- 
inch aperture telescope. 

"Is it loaded ?" 1 asked. 

''Yes, seven times," said he. 

' 'And will it go off seven times all at once ? " 
said I. 

"Once will be enough," said he; and then 
he added that the bore was so large that if 
the bullet once struck a man it would let 
daylight clean through him, even in the night 
time. 

You can well understand that, by the time 
242 



ALICE'S NIGHT WATCHMAN 

the carpenter was equipped for defensive 
operations, the whole neighborhood was 
worked up to a condition of great excite- 
ment. The children were enthusiastic over 
the prospect of bloodshed, and from the 
chatter that was indulged in by these inno- 
cents you might have supposed that a mur- 
derous tramp lurked at every corner. Alice 
and I walked over to the Schmittheimer place 
with thecarpenter,and we were accompanied 
by several of our neighbors and their off- 
spring. The evening was now advanced to 
the degree of darkness, and our heated fancies 
transformed every shadow into a living crea- 
ture. Little Annie Ewing was on the verge 
of hysterics and declared she saw things be- 
hind every tree and stump, and Mr. Denslow 
contributed to the general excitement by re- 
calling that he had read that very day of sev- 
eral mysterious murders down in a remote 
corner of Arizona by unknown tramps. 

I admit that I, too, was much perturbed. I 
contemplated with indignation the lawless 
impudence of the fellow who had broken 
into our barn, and who had" subsequently 
threatened violence to the carpenter for ex- 
243 



THE HOUSE 

postulating against this act of trespass. At 
the same time I could not stifle a feeling of 
pity for the homeless being who doubtless 
found the bed upon our barn floor as grate- 
ful as the downy couch of a Persian poten- 
tate. Nor could I stifle the conviction that 
it was a piece of miserable greediness on my 
part to deny this friendless and penniless 
wanderer the humble shelter he craved. 

In fact I presently became so ashamed of the 
part I was taking in these proceedings that 
but for my regard for Alice's feelings I would 
have packed the carpenter off home and left 
the barn open to the tramp and all his kind. 
As it was my conscience gave me no rest 
until I had induced neighbor Tiltman to ex- 
tract the cartridges from the pistol, which serv- 
ice he did so cleverly that the carpenter knew 
nothing about it, and continued to bluster 
and bloviate like a dragoon on dress parade. 

The tramp did not return that night, and I 
was glad he did not, for it would have spoiled 
our new premises for me had any act of vio- 
lence been committed thereupon. The ex- 
perience, however, alarmed Alice to such 
an extent that she determined to employ a 
244 



ALICE'S NIGHT WATCHMAN 

private watchman to guard the premises by 
night until we occupied them. She told me 
at supper the next evening that for this pur- 
pose she had secured the services of a poor 
but honest man who had called that day 
seeking employment. 

**You don't mean to tell me, my dear," 
said I, "that you have intrusted this respon- 
sible duty to a person who is in the habit of 
travelling from house to house, asking alms ! " 

'M guess I know an honest man when I 
see him," said Alice, "and I know this man 
is honest, if there is such a thing as an hon- 
est man." 

Alice went on to say that her protege was 
an old soldier; that he had wept when he 
told of his unrequited services for his coun- 
try, and of the ingratitude which he had ex- 
perienced when his application for a pension 
was denied by the unfeeling authorities at 
Washington. Alice said she had never met 
with a more civil-spoken person, and he must 
indeed have impressed her most favorably, 
for she advanced him fifty cents on account. 

We slept securely that night, for Alice's 
assurances made me confident that under the 
245 



THE HOUSE 

new watchman's sleepless vigilance all would 
be safe on the Schmittheimer premises. But 
about seven o'clock next morning there was 
a rude outcry, and there came a terrible 
banging at our front door. Looking out into 
the street we saw the carpenter with a very 
sorry specimen of manhood in custody. The 
carpenter was flourishing neighbor Tiltman's 
unloaded pistol and threatening to blow his 
prisoner's brains out. 

*'I caught him asleep in the barn! " cried 
the carpenter, excitedly. 

''Stop! Stop!" shrieked Alice. "Don't 
shoot him! Don't harm a hair of his head ! 
He is the night watchman I hired to guard 
the place!" 

''He 's the tramp!" insisted the carpenter. 
"He 's the very tramp who broke into the 
barn and slept there once before. I 've 
caught him now and I won't let him go! " 

The prisoner protested that the carpenter 
was mistaken, that he was, indeed, the night 
watchman, and that he was entitled to "the 
kind lady's protection." 

The fellow's voice sounded fiimiliar and I 
recognized his form and face. Yes, there 
246 



ALICE'S NIGHT WATCHMAN 

could be no mistake; I had seen and dealt 
with this person before. 

"My friends," said I, addressing Alice and 
her carpenter and the crowd of neighbors 
that had assembled, "you are right, and yet 
you are wrong. I know this man," and I 
identify him as the base ingrate who stole 
my new wheelbarrow and my garden uten- 
sils. Your name, sir," I continued, sternly, 
transfixing the quaking wretch with a glance 
of commingled anger and scorn, " your name 
is Percival Wax! " 



247 



XXIV 
DRIVEWAYS AND WALL-PAPERS 

HAD we been so disposed we could have 
given the wretched Percival Wax a 
great deal of trouble. Lawyer Miles was 
anxious to prosecute the fellow, and I dare 
say he felt that he had missed the greatest 
opportunity of his life when Alice and I 
concluded to let the matter drop. We were 
moved to this decision by the consideration 
that, while we owed Percival Wax only our 
resentment and vengeance, a prosecution of 
him for his numerous misdemeanors would 
put us to no end of trouble. The exposure 
and punishment of vice would doubtless 
prove much more popular among the vir- 
tuous, did not these proceedings involve so 
great an expenditure both of time and of 
labor. Alice and I were not long in making 
up our minds that we had plenty of other 
unavoidable troubles to engage our atten- 
248 



DRIVEWAYS AND WALL-PAPERS 

tion; so we let the tramp go, but not, how- 
ever, until I had lectured him seriously upon 
the propriety of his abandoning his evil 
ways and until Alice had given him a clean 
shirt and an old pair of shoes with which to 
start out afresh upon the pathway of reform, 
which he solemnly promised to follow. 

If you have ever passed the old Schmitt- 
heimer place — and doubtless you have, for 
it is the pride and ornament of a most aris- 
tocratic section — you must have noticed the 
roadway that leads from the street to the 
residence that looms up majestically two 
hundred feet back from the street. Perhaps 
you have wondered why grounds in other 
respects so attractive should be defaced by a 
feature so unsightly and so impracticable as 
this identical roadway. 

And yet, as I told Alice, this roadway was 
actually the most natural feature of the place ; 
there was absolutely no touch of artificiality 
about it; it was originally a stretch of sand, 
and such it had remained from time imme- 
morial, by which I mean from that remote 
date — presumably eighteen centuries ago — 
when the receding waters of Lake Michigan 
249 



THE HOUSE ' 

left the spot subsequently to be known as 
the old Schmittheiiner place high and dry in 
section 5, range 16, township 3. The genius 
of man had wrought wondrous and beauti- 
ful changes elsewhere, converting marshes 
into boulevards and transforming sandy 
wastes into blooming gardens; but never 
had it expended a touch or a thought upon 
that bald prehistoric streak which served as 
a driveway for all vehicles that dared invade 
the old Schmittheimer place. 

How many vehicles had in the lapse of 
years been hopelessly maimed or totally 
wrecked while trying to traverse that road- 
way I shall not presume to say, for as a man 
of science I glory in exactness and 1 eschew 
surmise. This much I know, for I have seen 
it time and again during the last four months : 
nothing that moves on wheels has ventured 
upon that roadway that it did not sink 
slowly but surely up to the hubs of its wheels 
in the unresisting sand. The Pusheck gro- 
cery cart broke a spring the first time it 
drove in, and the wagon that hauled the 
steam fixtures was stalled for three hours in 
one ofthose treacherous depressions in which 



DRIVEWAYS AND WAI.L-PAPERS 

the roadway abounds, depressions which, 
as I am told, are known to dwellers in hilly 
country places as " thank-ye-marms." 

Until I became acquainted with this par- 
ticular roadway I never fully comprehended 
the nicety and the force of the phrase ''to 
drive in." I had heard people say that they 
had driven into such and such places, and I 
had wondered why they employed this figure 
of speech when, it seemed to me, it would 
have been more exact to say that they entered 
upon or drove over. But I know now that 
it is no figure of speech when one says that 
he drives into the old Schmittheimer place. 
No other phrase could more exactly express 
an actuality. 

If we were going to retain the driveway 
in all its unhampered prehistoric simplicity, 
just as the glacial period found and left it, it 
would really be the proper thing for us to 
found and to maintain a rescue station in its 
vicinity, for we have been called upon to 
hasten to the relief of every vehicle that has 
"driven into" the premises since we took 
possession. And a very serious theological 
aspect of this matter is had in a considera- 

2SI 



THE HOUSE 

tion of the fact that this prehistoric driveway 
not only breaks spokes and tires and hubs 
and springs, but also incites human beings 
to break the third commandment. I have 
overheard the young man who drives Push- 
eck's grocery cart indulging in expletives 
which I am sure he never learned as a mem- 
ber of Alice's Bible class. 

So, taking one consideration with another, 
Alice and I determined to have a new road. 
Undoubtedly this was a wise determination; 
if we had gone ahead from that wise begin- 
ning and built the road as we had planned, 
all would have been well. The serious error 
we made was in seeking the counsel of our 
neighbors — the very same error we have 
made and kept on making over and over 
again eversince we entered upon this scheme 
of the new house. 

I take it for granted that you know as 
well as I do that when it comes to roads, 
there are as many different kinds of roads 
as there are planetoids in the solar system. 
Furthermore, paradoxical as it may appear, 
each of these different kinds is better than 
any of these others, for each possesses not 



DRIVEWAYS AND WALL-PAPERS 

only all the advantages of the others, but also 
certain distinct and paramount advantages of 
its own. Alice and I had decided upon a 
dirt road, because we believed that a dirt 
road would conform in appearance to the 
other rustic and farmlike features of the place, 
and because we flincied that a dirt road could 
be constructed cheaply. 

I use the term " dirt road " under protest. 
I am aware that what is called a dirt road is, 
properly speaking, an earth road. Dirt is 
filth, but earth is not; so when we call an 
earth road a dirt road we commit a vulgar 
error by employing a wrong epithet. All this 
I know, and yet, conforming to a custom, 
because it is a custom followed by all except 
a smattering of purists, I humiliate my sense 
of integrity, and I prostitute the virtue of my 
native speech. 

In an unguarded moment, as I have inti- 
mated, we confided to our neighbors the 
precious secret that the stretch of sand from 
our front gate to our backyard was to make 
way for a modern, safe, and comfortable drive- 
way. Immediately we were overwhelmed 
with suggestions and advice as to the par- 
253 



THE HOUSE 

ticular kind of driveway we really ought to 
iiave. You may have noticed that whenever 
a friend (a dear, good friend) advises, he or 
she invariably tells you what you really ought 
to have — putting much emphasis on the 
"ought." This clinches and rivets the ad- 
vice. When one says to you that you really 
ought to have such or such a thing, he means, 
of course, that you would have it if you were 
not either too poor or too stupid (or both) 
to get it. Alice and I are poor in purse, but 
1 deny that we are idiots. 

Not to consume your time with further 
discourse upon this subject (although I v/ill 
concede that it has its fascinations and its 
importance), I will say that the primitive 
roadway (illustrative of the pre-glacial pe- 
riod) still winds its Saharan course through 
our premises. For Alice and I are undeter- 
mined whether to follow our own instincts 
and have a dirt road (there it is again!) or 
whether to concede to neighborly influence 
in the matter of this driveway, just as we 
have conceded upon nearly every other de- 
tail that has come up for consideration within 
the last four months. I dare say we shall 
254 



DRIVEWAYS AND WALL-PAPERS 

eventually come back to our original plan, for 
it is already as clear as the noonday sun that 
if we adopt the suggestion of any one neigh- 
bor we shall have all the rest of our neighbors 
down on us for the rest of our lives. 

We had an unpleasant experience of this 
character in the matter of wall-paper. It 
seems that Alice and Adah consulted all the 
women-folks in their acquaintance, and after 
much agitation made such selections of wall- 
paper as they believed would serve as a fe- 
licitous compromise between all parties con- 
sulted and all tastes expressed. The result 
is that nobody is suited — nobody but me. 
As for me, I am too much of a philosopher 
and too busy with my philosophy to spend 
any time worrying about the color or the 
pattern of the paper on the walls. If the 
paper is not so prepossessing as it might 
be, I should be glad that it is upon my walls 
rather than upon the walls of those whom 
it would vex much more than it does me. 

I do not mind telling you that my favorite 
color in wall-paper (as well as in everything 
else) is red, and it was a delicate concession 
upon Alice's part to cover the walls of my 

255 



THE HOUSE 

Study over the kitchen with paper of unde- 
niably red hue, upon which appear tracings 
of yellowish white in a pattern particularly 
pleasing to my uneducated eye. Little Jo- 
sephine's room (which is shared by Alice's 
sister Adah) is decorated with wall-paper in 
which red is also the predominant color. 
The pattern is of bunches of roses in full 
bloom, and these counterfeit presentments 
are so true to the life that when little Jose- 
phine first entered the apartment she reached 
out her tiny hands in rapture and sought to 
pluck the beautiful flowers. Adah, too, is 
delighted with this floral design ; the rose is 
her favorite flower, and by a charming coin- 
cidence it happens to be also the favorite 
flower of Adah's friend Maria — of course you 
remember Maria; married Johnnie Richard- 
son, and lives at St. Joe, Missouri. So, you 
see,there are several tender sentiments attach- 
ing Adah to that rose-bedecked apartment. 

And yet (will you believe it ?) there are 
those who do not at all approve of the wall- 
paper in which I and little Josephine and 
Adah (to say nothing of Maria) take so great 
delight. Some of these people have been 

2S0 



DRIVEWAYS AND WALL-PAPERS 

ill-mannered enough to laugh aloud and long 
when they beheld the impassioned hue of 
the covering of the walls in my study ! There 
was one person (I forbear mention of her 
name) who seriously said she thought we 'd 
be afraid to let little Josephine sleep in that 
rose-garlanded room ; that the glaring colors 
would be likely to give the dear child the 
''willies." 1 do not know what the ''wil- 
lies " are, but I do know that little Josephine 
sleeps well, eats well, and is happy, and this 
is all that we could hope for in one of her 
tender years. 

Now while I cannot do otherwise than 
defend the choices in wall-papers which 
Alice and Adah have made, I distinctly rec- 
ognize and I regret two very unpleasant facts : 
first, that by not complying with their ad- 
vice upon the subject we have grievously 
offended a number of our neighbors, and, 
second, that Alice and Adah are prepared to 
set down in the list of their active and ma- 
lignant foes every woman who presumes to 
disparage either by word or by look the 
wall-paper they have picked out as most 
pleasing to their tastes. 
257 



XXV 

AT LAST WE ENTER OUR HOUSE 

THE detail of hardware fixtures did not 
enter into our original calculations. 
This was very stupid of us, so everbody else 
said — everybody, of course, who had been 
through the ordeal of building a house. It is 
surprising how soon one who has had this 
experience forgets that before he had that 
experience he was as ignorant and as un- 
suspecting a body as could be imagined. 

I suspect that after all it is a good thing 
for humanity that all people do not have 
to go through with what Alice and I have 
experienced the last four months. Otherwise 
the world would be filled with distrust, for 
1 can conceive of nothing else so likely to 
sow the seeds of rancor and of suspicion 
in one's bosom as an experience at building 
a house. 

It has seemed to me at times during the 



AT LAST WE ENTER OUR HOUSE 

last four months as if the carpenters and 
joiners and plumbers and painters were 
leagued against Alice and me to defraud and 
to rob us. I supposed that in these dull 
and hard times these people would feel in 
a measure grateful to us for giving them 
a chance to ply their trades. I find, how- 
ever, that they expect me to be grateful to 
them for allowing me the privilege of paying 
them exorbitant prices for very indifferent 
services. 

Alice wanted to make a contract in every 
instance, but she was wheedled out of this by 
the eloquent representations of the sharpers 
to the effect that it would be much cheaper 
in the end to pay for the material used and 
so much per diem for the actual labor done. 
This looked reasonable enough, but the re- 
sult was wholly in favor of the per-diem fel- 
lows. Our experience has convinced us that 
a mechanic who is working per diem will 
never make an end to his job so long as the 
appropriation holds out. 

Of what use would our new house have 
been to us if the doors and windows and 
screens and blinds had not been supplied 



THE HOUSE 

with the fixtures required for their operation ? 
We have very little worth stealing, and yet 
1 feel more secure if there are locks upon our 
doors and if the windows are fastened down. 
Uncle Si knew that we would need bolts and 
locks and other similar hardware fixtures; 
the neighbors, our busiest advisers, knew it, 
too; yet nobody ever said booh about these 
things to us. They fancied, forsooth, that 
we would have by intuition the knowledge 
which they had acquired by costly experi- 
ence ! And when we complained of the ex- 
pense and trouble involved in the selection 
and purchase of these extras, the intimation 
that we were unreasonably idiotic was freely 
bandied about by the very people who 
should have sympathized with us. 

The fixtures came late, too late for the big 
storm. There being no bolt or any other 
flistening to the north porch door, the wind 
blew that door open and the rain descended 
in torrents upon the hardwood floor of the 
guest chamber. Next day it was apparent 
that the floor was practically ruined. The 
carpenters agreed that it would have to be 
scraped and that it was very likely to swell 



AT LAST WE ENTER OUR HOUSE 

and spring out of place on account of the 
soaking it had suffered. 

Hardwood iloors may have their advan- 
tages: they ought to have, for they are a 
costly luxury and they are a great care. 
Owing to the few hardwood floors in our 
new house we were delayed moving into 
the place for many weeks. When Uncle 
Si and his cohort got through with them 
they were as billowy as the surface of the 
ocean. 

The painters came to us one by one and 
apprized us in confidence that those floors 
were the worst they had ever seen. They 
said that the carpenters must have supposed 
that we wanted a toboggan slide instead of 
hardwood floors. This sarcasm rankled in 
our bosoms. 

At this critical juncture Lansom Mansom, 
the cabinetmaker who had made our book- 
cases for us, came to our relief with the sug- 
gestion that he be employed to "go over" 
the floors and make them practicable. He 
advised the per-diem scheme, and with char- 
acteristic good nature we acceded to it. 
Thereupon this crafty and thrifty person set 
261 



THE HOUSE 

himself about this delectable task, which 
busied him five weeks at four dollars a day 
— a sum not to be sneezed at, 1 can tell 
you. 

When the floors were scraped and stained 
and varnished it took two weeks for them 
to dry; meanwhile nobody was permitted 
to approach them. A favored few among 
our most intimate friends were graciously 
allowed to peer in at the shining floors from 
the porch outside, and it seemed very tedious 
waiting for the time to come when we 
could put those floors to the uses for which 
floors are undoubtedly intended. 

When at last we ivere suffered to walk 
upon the floors an unlooked-for casualty 
came very near dashing to the ground the 
cup of joy which our pride had, metaphori- 
cally speaking, raised to our lips. Little 
Josephine, the most precious jewel in our 
domestic diadem, had never before had any 
experience with hardwood floors, and no 
sooner did she begin to dance and caper 
on that smooth and lustrous surface than 
the innocent little lambkin lost her foot- 
ing and fell, sustaining so severe a shock 



AT LAST WE ENTER OUR HOUSE 

as to render the services of a physician 
necessary. 

This mishap confirmed me in my dislike 
for hardwood floors, and that dislike has 
increased steadily. Several other people 
have come very near breaking their necks 
by losing their balance on that treacherous 
surface, and 1 confess that 1 myself am com- 
pelled to exercise the art of a Blondin in or- 
der to maintain my equilibrium in those 
slippery places. 

Alice has always argued that hardwood 
floors were particularly desirable for the rea- 
son that they did away with the expense 
and care of carpets. It is true that we are 
to have no carpets in the apartments where 
these hardwood floors have been laid, but 
these handsome floors simply emphasize and 
italicize a man's poverty unless they are 
dotted with rugs, and there is none so fool- 
hardy as to deny that the average rug costs 
five times as much as the average carpet. 
And the care demanded by a hardwood 
floor is exacting, for that shining surface, 
upon which every spot of dust stands out 
so distinctly, must be gone over daily with 
263 



THE HOUSE 

a soft brush, and must be wiped up with a 
wet cloth at least thrice a week. 

Moreover the utmost precaution must be 
practised lest the surface of the hardwood 
floor be scratched or be seamed by the nails 
in one's boots or by the legs of tables or of 
chairs. Our youngest son, Erasmus, com- 
plains grievously of the restrictions put upon 
him since he entered upon this hardwood- 
floor epoch of his career. It is hard for the 
buoyant lad to understand why he is not to 
be permitted to slide and skate on these 
floors as he has hitherto been permitted to 
slide and skate on the floors of the rented 
houses we have lived in. I have not chided 
Erasmus for his remonstrances, for I, too, have 
been tempted to rebel against the new order 
of things. If either Erasmus or I ever build 
a house of our own we shall eschew the 
hardwood-floor heresy as we would a pest. 

There is another evil which I am at this 
moment reminded of, and that is the fold- 
ing-door evil. In all my experience I have 
never met with another door as honest, sen- 
sible, and trustworthy as the door that swings 
on hinges. 

264 



- AT LAST WE ENTER OUR HOUSE 

I told Alice so when the subject of doors 
came up in our discussions of proposed 
innovations in the new house. But Alice 
had conceived the notion that we ought 
to have a folding door in the parlor, and 
when Alice once gets a notion into her head 
all creation with a pickaxe couldn't get it 
out again. 

Properly speaking, the door was not a 
folding door; it was a sliding door. When 
pushed back it was to disappear in the wall 
separating the parlor from the front hall. 
When I saw Uncle Si and his men con- 
structing this door 1 expressed the fear that 
it wouldn't work, but Uncle Si laughed my 
fears to scorn; the trouble with too many 
doors, he said, was that they were made of 
cheap stuff; this door, he assured me, was 
an A No. i door and would never — could 
never — get out of place. Then he showed 
me the rollers and attachments and proved 
their practicability and strength. 

Not knowing any more about such things 

than a seacow knows of the summer solstice, 

I assented to all his propositions and went 

my way with my apprehensions completely 

265 



THE HOUSE 

allayed. But in less than forty-eight hours 
after Uncle Si and his men turned over the 
house to us, bang went that door, and no 
power at our command could budge it an 
inch either way. 

Another carpenter came and investigated. 
Presently he shook his head and smiled a 
bitter smile. Then he told us that the break 
would not have happened if the fixtures had 
not been of the cheapest make. What we 
required, he said, was fixtures that cost ten 
dollars instead of three dollars, our door 
being a large parlor door and not a light 
pantry door. 

We bade this sarcastic genius go ahead 
and remedy the evil as best he could, and 
the result is that the door now slides as 
smoothly as even the most exacting could 
wish: this repair has involved the expendi- 
ture of only fifteen dollars, and 1 would 
not mention it if 1 had any confidence what- 
ever in the door even in its rehabilitated 
condition. 1 know as well as 1 know any- 
thing else that as soon as we build a fire in 
our heating apparatus next November the 
heat thereof will warp and twist that door 
266 



AT LAST WE ENTER OUR HOUSE 

into such shape that it will be as impossible 
to budge it as if it were nailed down. We 
shall then be in a serious pickle, for we shall 
be unable to enter our parlor. 

The windows all over the house are fast in 
their casings, having been painted so carefully 
by those rascally painters that it requires the 
power of a steam derrick to raise them. The 
other morning 1 tried to open one of the 
windows in the butler's pantry, for the at- 
mosphere in that place was absolutely sti- 
fling. 1 tugged and pulled and pushed in 
vain. 

Finally a happy thought struck me, and 
I hunted up a hammer and used it lustily 
upon the obstinate sash. 1 must have got 
careless, for after I had hammered away for 
several minutes 1 missed my aim and the 
head of the hammer went through a pane of 
glass. 

I didn't want Alice to know anything 
about this mishap, so I furtively hired a gla- 
zier to repair the damage I had done. As I 
made no contract with the fellow he took 
advantage of me, just as I should have 
known by experience he would. Here is a 

267 



THE HOUSE 

copy of the bill he has just sent in for me 
to pay: 

" Reuben Baker, Esq., to J. Sykes, Dr. 

To one pane glass 7x1 1 30 

To one day's labor selling same $3.60 

Total $3. 90 

Please remit." 



[It was the intention of Mr. Field to add 
a final chapter to his book describing the 
entrance of the Baker family into their new 
home, but his sudden death left the book 
with this chapter unwritten.] 



168 



